For Rachel

*****For Rachel Corrie****
Rahmatullah 'Alayk

It’s gotten to the point where I just don’t understand
I cannot comprehend how people still defend
This apartheid and injustice

Do people not know what’s going on?
That we give 23 million a day to sustain their bombs
That Americans are so focused on the security threat in Iran
That they don’t even bother to hear the truth anymore

Tell me. Please explain.
How can you cry for the machine gun and not the Palestinian?
Everyday these people suffer violent cruelty and lose loved ones

You can forget the religious debate you’re about to use
I’m talking about the unreported abuse that is ignored by our news.
The basic human right violations that are disregarded and inadvertently supported by Americans and her government.
That its own citizens go without protection

Rachel Corrie. Do you remember her?
The non-violent peace activist who was murdered
Today’s her martyrdom’s 10-year anniversary.
Her sacrifice breathes as a living memory.
Of the injustice and racist ridiculousness that is so openly practiced.

For all the martyrs the ones who have been murdered
For the collateral damage, the human shields.
The exploitation and abuse, for all the scars that will never heal

The truth, your sacrifice will be heard.
Because when people start to listen
When people begin to care
About humans as humans
When our ignorance and culture of being unaware ends.
Your death would have been for something.

For You

Ive been doing this for you.
Pursuing all of these opportunities
All the ones that weren’t offered to you

You are my drive my inspiration.
You compel me. I must be your vindication.

Because if I don’t that’s selfish.
I know what it is to be blessed.
I have seen the struggle, the fights, the defeat of the rest.

I’ve been doing this for you.

You could have been a doctor.
Maybe a painter. A dancer.
A political campaigner.

But you were given cards
Not told the game
No matter the rules, youre beat
no how many times you deal again
you will always lose.
It is all in vain

So I’ve been doing this for you.

I know you are looking at me.
Supporting me always.
Giving me strength and love
Til the end of my days

Because if I were you and your were me
You’d be taking advantage of every opportunity
We have the same hunger
We have the same drive

The only difference is one of us has been deprived.

And that is why I am doing all of this for you.

Freedom of Speech

They denied me my freedom of speech
Words I didn’t even get the chance to speak
But I guess my Arab education.
Makes me a threat to national security.
So much for the only democracy
Functioning in the Middle East

State funded racism.
Another word for Zionism
But don’t you know it’s the same thing as anti-Semitism?
That both ideas both practices call for the complete separation.
The denial of integration.
The foundation of the Jewish nation

Those ghettos in Germany
Are now settlements in Jenin.
The power is separating them based on the Hebrew ethnicity
Our Jewish brothers and sisters are again separated from the rest of society

The refusal of co-existence.
The suppression of all resistance

I am not anti-Semitic nor am I a Zionist
I’m what we call a humanist
A person who believes that all people have the right to exist
I am the opposite of a separatist

These are the words that I wanted to speak
When they isolated, interrogated
When they detained me and denied me my entry
Telling me that they didn’t believe
Telling me I was constantly changing my story

And as they stamped and labeled me
A threat to national security
They told me they were sorry.

But it wasn’t a real apology.
These were the words they were trained to speak
What they’re taught to say while serving in the military
In the only democracy
Functioning in the Middle East.

Long live freedom of speech.

Ambition

When you look in me you will find strength in me.

Because I was raised and taught to have tenacity.

To take up the things I do full heartedly.

To remember my roots and all those who came before me.

To talk and act respectfully.

That my purpose is not defined by the constraints of possibility.

Because I know the grind

And I’ve seen too many failed fights

To not recognize my opportunities and not work with all my might.

That when I say imma do something I do it

I put in the work damn straight I commit

That roadblocks are normal.

In fact they are practically a constant

But stopping my dear has never been an option

So for those bumps those gliches those problems I have

I say beware

Because I do not nor will I ever handle with care.

I wish I were Brave

They tell me I’m brave.

They tell me I am brave.

I go to a land of apartheid
I work in a land of genocide
I see men lose their children
I see them cry.
I see them looking at the land in which they are denied
The land their fathers worked
The land where their mothers birthed
them.

I see a travesty.
A travesty my own country helped create.
They give them the money, money to sustain their gates.
To sustain a wall that fuels each side's hate.

But they tell me I’m brave.
They tell me I am brave.

I read about the fire, I read about the bombs
I don’t see them I cannot feel them. My city is always calm.
Does it feel like our country is at war?
You know those battles our men and women have been fighting for over 3 score.

We are not dealing with equal sides.
There is the occupier and the occupied.
Where every act of progression is denied
Yet somehow, these people they thrive.

But they tell me I’m brave
They tell me I am brave.

But me? I can walk away.
Because honestly it does not directly affect my day.
I can pretend this doesn’t exist.
That even if this violence persists.
Nothing here will change.
The only thing that has changed
Is the distance of missile range.
In this so-called Holy land.

Let me be the first to say there is nothing holy about killing an innocent man.
That collateral damage is a little too much in demand.
What people will do to get the so-called upper hand
Erroneous it is that these murderers will never see the witness stand
In their defense of national security for the holy land.

Am I’m left here wondering who is it that needs to be saved?

I wish I were brave.

Homeland

When you look at me
Stop pitying me
Because you hear the one word
My homeland
My nationality
And suddenly
I am nothing?

Because if you knew, what I’d been through
You would want me to set an example for you.

You would see strength in me.
You would put your faith in me.
You would have never doubted me.
You would have listened to me.

Instead of ignoring me
Imploring me, to tell you of the sad little life I’ve had.
My life is hard, but Allah has blessed me, and it isn’t that bad.

My stature is short but my ambition is not
You have no idea of my battle, the people I’ve fought
To get to this place
To stand before you
To be up here on this stage spitting my rhymes for you

If I could go one introduction
Without the mentioning of the destruction
Within my country
People assuming my loving father regularly punched me
That there could ever be exceptions.
That maybe some people have some skewed misconceptions.

Of the oppression I face
No I am not speaking of an imaginary place
But you don’t even take the time to ask me
You don’t even try to understand
Because for me my country is the Promise Land

And I have faith in my fellow countrymen
That this is a land of potential
And destroying these stereotypes is essential

Afghanistan
Afghanistan
I wish you could see my homeland
Through my eyes
The beauty that raised me
The struggle that made me
Afghanistan
I praise thee.

My Depression

I didn’t understand
I didn’t understand until I happened to me
The darkness I had watched torment my mother
It finally got to me
Consuming all the light and hope I held within me

It crippled
It hurt
It heavily weighed
I felt like I had no control
The darkness devoured my days

I could not rest or relax
Or rally after its paralyzing attacks.

I tried
I analyzed
But I could not comprehend
Why the good wasn’t good enough anymore
Why I couldn’t find the joy I had held just days before.

This depression.
This trivial thing
Destroyed and consumed my being
My world was washed with this dark feeling
But this, this was not an unfamiliar scene

My mirror was nothing more than a picture
One of my childhood.
One of resentful memories

Mommy why cant you play with me
Mommy why aren’t you happy
Mommy what is wrong with me that you cant even smile at me
Mommy why is this happening
MOMMY PLEASE JUST LOOK AT ME

Mommy it found me.

Mommy, I’m so sorry.
I’m sorry that I resented your battle and blamed you instead of supporting your fight

Because Mommy, Blessed am I that you made it through every night.
And you woke up every morning
And you loved me everyday

Because Mommy I understand.
I understand because the darkest it found me too.
But the darkness will not consumed me
Because it did not consume you.

Because I have proof
And my proof is you
You are all I need.
Because Mommy, You inspire me.