Innocent Despair
Detail from a poster circa 1983 | Palestine Poster Project Archives o
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When separate from you my blood will ache.
An unknown part of me will ache
and I’ll try to kill it. Or grab it.
The cell that misses you will throb in me,
and I won’t be able to spot it,
it changes position often,
drags out the game,
hurts my senses.
My eyesight will worsen,
my auditory range will dwindle,
and my nose, a hunting dog’s,
will search for your smell.
Whenever air touches my skin,
a fiend will pierce my body and flee.
My memory will hurt and eat my head,
and my head will vanish but not die.
My ache will regenerate my head.
I’ll grow sad, an invisible feeling,
a ruin, an infinite overflow of dread.
And the angry universe will collect itself
in a corner of my life to ask me:
What have you done with the scale of love?
How did you waste openness on detail?
The answer will hurt me as will silence.
Burning, I’ll go to my death
and demand my right
to a nap.
—Ramallah
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