Since early youth I have quantified the measure of a man seeking a distance between firearms and steely blades with an inborn sense…thinking – always thinking…and coveting a longing for the end of my humanity factor. Metaphor for metaphor, and regarding a severe ruminating ideation where poetry dwells upon a dangerous past.

Yes, my wounds of blood-soaked hemorrhaging from too many musing thoughts of contemplating a madness for suicide that endured decades of worshipping a concupiscent fear and the over-populated rationale from a biased land of gut-wrenching attempts to die as warrior, failure, and poet.

Through the inkwells of pen and poet I hear my name being called (as thunder), guided through sorrow and grief to the inferno’s call a first – person narrative to the land of Dante’s hall of fiery thoughts and a madman’s dream for a ceasefire.

Upon witnessing the past, hidden enemies fleeing the light and a powerful hand-held grip upon my shoulders, ready to jump off the ledge onto razors laced with the blood-soaked reality of fleshly wounds, where my enemies return, again, during the darkness.

This ethnic cleansing of my soul seizes then destroys my being from sleeping decades of prayer never allowing me to poeticize or hear myself think – and make sense.

Mahmoud Darwish – your eternal sleep nourishes my every word. Copiously, I write…making time for so much time lost to foolishness, despair, and at times even hunger, always sleeping upon the doorstep of destitution of residence.

I write with my pen and the blood of the martyrs from the decomposed depths from every word, as a poet’s purporting smell of rotting flesh for egocentricity – perhaps, the night dwells within too much darkness, and my enemies do not sleep – as yours did not.

And, also, dear Mahmoud, as you have already stated, perhaps

“the earth is too narrow | for people | and for the gods” (Darwish).