Written as a boundary-setting letter in my Arabic diary (March 2006). This is an English adaptation, prepared with the help of AI. The original Arabic poem follows below.
Image by Dương Nhân
Do not return to me—
you’ll find in me but ruin,
fields of ash, collapsed debris.
Strike me from your history—
my presence in your past is sin to be.
Adapted from my Arabic diary, February 2006, with the assistance of AI. The original poem appears below. Image by Nemika F
Damascus —
Rabab—do not shut the windows tight.
The air is vile. Throw open every door.
A hundred fifty years we’ve rotted out of sight,
submerged in mold, entombed in a cellar’s core.
Adapted from my original Arabic diary (January 2006). This English version was created with the help of AI as a literary adaptation. The original Arabic poem follows.
Image by Pixabay
Damascus —
Before your eyes, don’t ask me why
I lose my balance, falter, sway—
Why like a child I shake and shy,
And stumble over what I say.
Don’t ask of me how I am found,
For words desert me when you’re near;
Your eyes are forests, vast, unbound,
No wonder that my tongue disappears.
Written in Damascus in my youth, this poem is addressed to my cousin Roba, as a moral witness and an early influence on my relationship with language and writing. The English version is an adaptation produced with the help of AI. The original Arabic poem appears below.
Image by cottonbro studio
I write with Damascus jasmine, a greeting,
to you—most precious of my kindred line,
you who entered the ledger of my life
the moment you set sail in grief’s long time.
From my December 2005 Arabic diary.
This English version is an adaptation, created with the help of AI. The original Arabic text appears below.This is not a poem of pride, but of shame.
It was never sent to the woman addressed here. It remained private — a dark mark in my own history.I keep it as a reminder of how easily love can be overreached:
how an energy meant to give and gift can be twisted into a tool of control,
how devotion can slip into manipulation,
how care can disguise the urge to rule.Image by Ferdinand Studio
Damascus —
Brown-eyed girl, don’t play the proud—
you’re drowning in the open sea,
and I alone am what you have,
my ships the only shore you see.
Roumani Line 