i just spent the past hour and a half of my life staring into the eyes of a man on a screen.
i went with my class to watch a documentary about palestinian refugees in lebanon. i could barely focus on the content of the movie as one loud urge resonated in me; the urge to protect, to heal, to take care of that man. he showed no sign of weakness or need in any way; on the contrary, he kept displaying that smile of bravery that i know all too well.
a smile that wants to show self-contentment; a paralyzer smile, an anesthetic, clearly here to numb a horribly gaping pain. he's a grown man, but he kept his childhood eyes. there still remains the fear and terror of what they have seen and the strongest sense of dismemberment i've ever seen. he's no orphan, but he has the panicked look of a child looking for his lost parents, knowing he will never find them.
that man is real. he's probably smoking another cigarette right now in the confinement of the camp. camp. a bunch of concrete, dirty money and ill security entrapping thousands of suffering souls.
i've been complaining about my lassitude, about the entrapment of my breath; a figurative one. they can't earn an decent livelihood, can't move up the economic ladder, if they were to make a family, it would be one that suffers under the weight of the chokehold, barely any education, barely any infrastructure to provide them with clean water or electricity.
that's how you form them, those terrorists. those men all-too-willing to blast themselves for some random cause. trap them, suffocate them and make them hate their lives, despise their existence and so, that of everyone else. boom!
no, i wish it was one of those ideal moments of, oh i've seen a condition worse than mine, suddenly i feel better. because i raise my praise and thanks to the Giver; i am already aware of being blessed. that was never my problem.
his problem was that he had nowhere to belong to. he craves at least an illusion of stability, of constancy because in it he thinks peace will be. of course he would, he's been brought up to think he is a refugee, that he belongs elsewhere, and that until he goes back to elsewhere, until he settles down in a dreamland, he'll never be home, he'll never have peace. he'll be within war.
men around him hold guns and point them at him (jokingly). he doesn't flinch. it feels like he wished they blew his brains. it feels like he's been run over in this life, and can't wait to leave it. he's restless, he's uneasy.
i'm looking for my home too. but it's no land, like palestine. it's no perfect picture either, like luxury money can buy. i've been home before. i'm looking to find it again.
another point to connect to; i'm looking for the phase in which i disappear into a line.
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