It Is Not Me
The poem draws on a personal memory tied to the Tadamon neighborhood in Damascus, where one of the most brutal massacres of the Syrian war took place. The poet returns to the moment when the killer became known and visible, not as a complete stranger, but as a possible neighbor or familiar face.
It is not me.
I have disappeared.
I am dead now.
I fell into a trench,
And a mountain of corpses caught my fall.
O Amjad,
You handsome monster,
You startled me as you stood at the edge of the pit, your cheerful smoke,
With the profanity I had long grown accustomed to.
I drank tea with you,
We crossed Damascus together,
Yesterday we played together on the sidewalk,
Yesterday I ran into you on a microbus,
And we laughed together.
It is not me,
I have died.
I must withdraw from the world,
Change my name,
Conceal my identity.
I am not from that land,
Nor do I belong to those hungry beasts,
I do not belong to that place.
I am from Tadamon,
Yes,
Near those deep pits,
Beside those burning tires
Whose stench never fades.
I am from that wild diversity,
My neighbors are from everywhere:
Salamiyah was right next to my home,
A man from the coast was my landlord,
The crosses stood everywhere nearby,
All the Druze, with their distinct dialect, were near me.
I am from Damascus,
From Tadamon, specifically,
Near Othman Mosque
Our home was right there.
Who takes the photos now? Of Haitham?
Perhaps he is dead by now.
Who will tell me what happened to Mohammad?
Perhaps they hid his corpse.
Who can ask the strangers there now:
Where is our house?
Where are our neighbors?
Childhood companions:
Husam,
Wissam,
My mother,
My brothers?
Who will gather their shoes to keep as a memory?
Who will collect their bags that drift through memory? Who will gather their IDs so I may record their death?
I will not tell the Europeans what my people did,
Nor what the friends of our house did;
I will not tell them who we are,
Or what our names were.
O Amjad,
You handsome monster,
What did you eat to become like this?
What did you drink?
Whom did you keep company with?
Who is the mother who raised you?
Surely she must have been kind,
Surely she is a person overflowing with tenderness.
O Amjad, you killer—
Whom we surely once met,
And embraced,
And lived alongside,
How did you kill us so completely?
How did you dare?
How did your hand not tremble?
How did no feeling stop you,
Nor any boundary deter you?
Let the camera roll, Amjad,
We have all fallen into your pit,
And you are right there with us,
You were the first of us to fall,
Despite the survival you imagine.
