Not Blind

Taghrid Abdelal

C
o
l
u
m
n
s

No it isn’t. But love
took one of my eyes for itself, love
had vision before birth, did
discuss with me the accuracy
of what transpires in lenses.

And then it went blind—slowly
soaked us up from behind a veil,
and we couldn’t see it.

A deaf air said to me
that borders believe
space is smaller than the world
since children draw Earth
smaller than their houses
and eyes bigger than their faces.

Here love failed to find its eyes,
borrowed my lips
for better form.

Love, why don’t you stay as you are,
without official title,
subsistent on whoever desires you
for five minutes
before your suicide?

How cruel
you announce your sex
with paradise.

Hey, one last thing.

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Taghrid Abdelal, a Palestinian born in the Nahr El Bared refugee camp in Lebanon in 1984, is a visual artist, essayist, the author of three poetry collections, and a recent winner of the Young Poets of Palestine by the Qattan Foundation.