The following poem is designed to be recited live as this sound recording plays.

Forgive me, l3aiziza

It has been too long since my last lesson.

But time melts away from me

As my body sinks into the ground

That’s opened to swallow me whole.

This terrible sin of language

Weighs heavy on my soul.

I listen despite my shame

And gleam little, still.

Smhliya l3aiziza

Why can’t I wrap my tongue

Around these words

Like you wrap your arms

Around my heart?

You soften the anxiety

I inherited from you.

I always hoped some day

To return the favour.

Smhliya l3aiziza

I mourn the histories

And the nuances

My failed listening

Has concealed from me.

Can I dance with you again?

I’ll let a million cameras

Record our sway

To enshrine this history.

Smhliya l3aiziza

The terrible sin 

Of circumstance

Drove a linguistic chasm 

Between us.

Small miscalculations

Made under pressure of

Shortsighted survival

Distorted priorities.

Smhliya l3aiziza

The terrible sin

Of teenage petulance

Settled in my heart

And stunted my ambition.

But we found comfort

In adjusted communication.

Your life lives in the sinews of my body

And holds me together.

Shukran l3aiziza

Let me tell you that my heart (3mins)

Is full because of you

We are the same 

But a few years and words apart.

I am kind,

I am stubborn

I am more than slightly unhinged,

And for all that and more,

Shukran l3aiziza

You would reach out to me, and you would say, 

Bghiti msemen?

Bghiti lqahwa?

Bghiti atay?

And I would say,

Na3am, 

Shukran, 

Bismillah.

And you would smile

Because I’m a glutton,

Or because I still can’t wrap 

My tongue around these words.

Smhliya l3aiziza

I should have known

Your smile is enough.

It doesn’t matter

If I speak gibberish, Dar-English;

If I can’t say 3

If I can’t say H

If I can’t say q

If I can’t say uMi

My gibberish could have grown

Into something more,

Had I nurtured it

As you nurtured me.

Shukran l3aiziza

I don’t know who I am without you.

I make atay,

And drink up thoughts of you,

Hoping to transfigure somehow.

Perhaps when you hug me next,

We can melt into one another

And you can stay,

Or I can come with you.

Smhliya l3aiziza

My brain is weak

And it feels too late,

So let me borrow your faith

And listen, to retell.

Before the terrible sin of circumstance

Robs us once more,

I’ll wrap my tongue

Around these words,

InshaAllah l3aiziza.

MHshomasht

MHshomasht

MHshomasht

MHshomasht

MHshomasht

I repeat it until I believe it.

TsseneT, smhliya.

Eisd, tha mi duilich.

Listen, forgive me.

And soon I will come to you 

With gibberish aplenty

You who has suffered for me,

You whom I love above all things.

I will make you proud, 

L3aiziza