I Am No Syrian Woman

I
am
no
Syrian woman.
I am no brave,
resistant, resilient, heroic
Syrian woman.

And no matter
how many
Syrian friends I have,
how much
Arabic
I strive to learn
nor how many
Nizar Qabbani’s poems
I read.
I am no Syrian woman

If I fill my garden
with jasmine
And damascene roses
I am no Syrian woman.

And it doesn’t matter
how many times
I wave
the Syrian flag
nor how many
Syrian children’s pictures
I post
on my Facebook wall,
I am no Syrian woman

If I relentlessly condemn
killings, bombings, tortures
regime brutalities and
foreign occupation
still

I am no Syrian woman.

No
I am no Syrian woman,
I haven’t got
Aleppo’s map
engraved
in the palms of my hands
nor haunting memories
of Sham’s lands
nor in my nostrils
Damascus’ scents.

I am no Syrian woman
I’m not the mother, sister, daughter
of a martyr
nor I’m a martyr myself.

I am not
a human in exile
thinking of
home, home, home…
Where is home?

I did not hold
my dying child,
his flesh torn apart by shrapnel,
wishing I could be dead
and my skin ripped
in million pieces too.
I do not live under siege
having to collect weeds
to feed my kids.

I do not shake at the sound of
fighter jets approaching.
I have not been tortured
nor my womb savagely raped
as I hear the appalling wail
of my sisters undergoing the same.
No
I am no Syrian woman
nor I’ll ever be,

but I’m human
and that’s what makes the Syrian in me.