Blood orange, p.1
Blood Orange, page 1
Blood Orange
Yaffa AS
Published by Meraj Publishing, 2023.
Copyright © Yaffa AS
Published in 2023 by Meraj Publishing
Illustrations copyright © 2023
All rights reserved.
This is a work of creative nonfiction. Some parts have been fictionalized in varying degrees, for various purposes.
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: info@merajpublishing.com
First paperback edition November 2023
Book design by Michael Colgan, Yaffa AS & Andrea Ramos Campos
Merajpublishing.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Diaspora
I Am
Mother Tongue
Falasteen
On Our Way
Southwest
I Understand
Blood Orange
Cis white zionist
One Genocide
Healthy
At Odds
Tallying
When the World Ends
Lines and Circle
Every Fiber
Standing
Trans and Palestine
Relinquish
Questions in the Desert during an Eclipse
Resist
Stars
Count
Humanity
Mars
Whiteness Feeds
Marginalized
Amal
Victory
Tasleem
Ring of Power
Moving Piece
Land back
To those who dream of better worlds and those who build them.
Diaspora
being in the diaspora
is having genocide
at your door
and you’re not home to greet it
being in the diaspora
is wondering
which cut from your paycheck
killed your cousin
being in the diaspora
is being told
you are not from anywhere
while they kill you everywhere
being in the diaspora
is being
murdered
without ever bleeding
I Am
i am not
a body
you can murder
i am
a movement
you can't quench
i am not
a thought
you can extinguish
i am
a spark
you can't dim
i am not
an act
you can retaliate against
i am
a voice
you can't dull
i am not
a Palestine
you can erase
i am
indigenous sovereignty
you can't wipe out
i am
Palestine
indigenously sovereign
a movement
a thought
a voice
i am inevitable
Mother Tongue
they call it
mother tongue
because it is
meant to be
etched into
your being
because we all
have a
mother
so,
where do
the motherless
go?
those of us
without
a language to
ground us
a language to
remember us
remember me
when i don't
remember it
remember her
my mother
the mother of
my tongue
my people
i have a tongue
i have languages
and i have lost
my mother
tongue
because memory
and displacement
and dissociation
and learning
and unlearning
demanded her
loss
my loss
Falasteen
there are no
days without
Palestine in a heart
that was told
it was wrong
to yearn for
something that
was supposedly never
mine
my heart
yearns beyond
knowledge of what
was and will be
a certainty
words can never
define
i gaze
my third eye
stretching to fields
of citrus and olive
where blood is spilled
that feels and looks
like mine
mapping a trail
along nine countries
where blood and tears
store pieces of
indigeneity
that is mine
i wonder
when she will
call me home
opening her bosom
to states of awareness
beyond time
and place
i am and am not
home
for i am
Palestine and
she yearns for
me to taste
home
On Our Way
our bodies polarize
yet make the news
i am conscious
that other bodies
do not
a privilege is a privilege
even when it starts
and ends in genocide
our bodies are powerful
yet lie underneath tons
of concrete and rubble
that smells of jasmine
and sage, glazed in orange
and fig
drizzled in olive
oil that described Allah
in a lantern beyond
our minds warp
under the weight of
injustice in spilled blood
gaslighting and erasure
the weight of
indigenous genocide
fastened to our belts
released only when
we are
our people
rise like wisps
of rose water
breathing life
into knafe and
pistachio ice cream
on streets inscribed
in memories lost
to time fertilizing
homes we will
return to before
time begins
we are the beginning
and the end in a story
neither and yet
both at the same time
we are Palestine
call us by any other
name and we still are
what we are
Palestinians
Palestine
indigenous folks
on our way
Southwest
i don't know
if you're okay
names and faces
from years ago
family displaced
southwest rather than
southeast
lost at sea
in an open air prison
i may never see
i'm not sure
who to ask about
you, siblings to a
grandfather lost
to pandemics and time
children barely
remembering him
let alone you
do you remember
me like i remember
bits of you?
or am i lost
to memory
names and faces
that barely resemble
your Blackness
anymore
maybe you wonder
and say whatever
happened to those
who went southwest
instead of southeast?
I Understand
he said
you can't be
Palestinian
because you're
not white enough
they say
my people will
drag my
dead corpse
around
netenyahu
says we
caused the
holocaust
she refuses
to look my
way, stating
again and again
there is no
such thing
as a
palestinian
he says
i should beat
you to a pulp
but why do what
trains can
i understand
i understand
Blood Orange
i am of
a people who
have died a
thousand times
as white people
came and conquered
our blood filling
trees and canyons
turning the
sea a blood orange
like an eclipse that
forgot to
subside
the world ends
anew here
again and again
we are the
final test
of a humanity
that continues to
fail
angels watch
bathing in lot’s sea
wondering why
you have been
permitted to
continue on
again and again
time ends
life begins
still we are
still we will
be your
envy and hate
your terror in
a night you
created for
yourself
Cis white zionist
he says
you're still welcome
here
we love you
as if my
people’s genocide
that he upholds
supports
pays for
is not cause
to stay away
as if all
their lives mean
nothing compared
to a single
relationship forced
upon me
in the first place
he doesn't
know or understand
that even if
i loved him most
he is nothing
compared to every
indigenous person
out there
the caucasity
of cis-white zionists
to believe they
matter more
than the world
One Genocide
is it all
only one
genocide
if they
can't tell us
apart across
hundreds of years?
Healthy
we are
not meant to
be okay when
genocide is
our neighbor
that is funded
by our labor
we are
meant to be
a mess
our sleep
tearing into
reality
anxiety brewing
wondering what
is hope?
we are
meant to
tear at the seams
of reality
realizing a reality
built on oppression
is bullshit
we are
meant to
realize and demand
all we are worth
self-actualization
wholeness
things systems
built off of genocide
can never
our response
labeled by
western capitalism
as wrong is
healthy
we move to
wholeness
always
they move to
pain, attempting
to drag us
with them
At Odds
my transness and
a colonized perception
of Palestine are at
odds
they think it's
because of islam
lack of modernity
i say i have only
received death threats
targeting my
transness from
white people, zionists
and other
various political
affiliations
i say only yt
people around me
have ever disowned
their own
yet i do not
talk to sisters
who choose to buy
into imperialist transphobia
claiming it as
their own
my parents
do not understand
how some of
their children
could hate anything
any of their
children could be
why anyone
would hate what
they do not
know
Tallying
i make a
list, tallying
who says what
when, where
or who does not
say what
when, where
crystallizing
support and
hypocrites
who ultimately
build a world
not made for
us
When the World Ends
i tense
at nightmares
awake
my sleep filled
with rest
the touch of
another so
far from my
truth
your singing bowls
calm an ocean
of catastrophe
precipitating into a
hurricane off
every coast
thank you reiki
i am open to accepting
your hands glide
along my skin
my chakras awakening
you do not
understand
but understanding
has never been
necessary to
support
you stand by
arm there when
i need it
taking care of
someone who has
never learned to
accept care
when the world
ends
i know only you
will think of me
then
Lines and Circle
you drew a line
when you said
you didn't have
to tolerate queer
and trans people
you drew a line
when you said
a settler colonial
state is valid
in defending itself
leading to genocide
you drew a line
when you said
cops are necessary
to maintain
the peace
you drew a line
when you said
all lives matter
Black-on-Black crime
a few bad apples
as if the orchard
didn't need
torching
you drew a line
when you said
pro-life
it's a woman's choice
that this is unlivable
when rights have never
been ours
you drew a line
when you said
anyone blue
as if blue and red
are not siblings
you've drawn
every line
there could be
while we
wait for a circle
Every Fiber
if you count
every fiber
in a Yaffa orange
will you find
my dead people?
my family?
me?
Standing
"i stand with"
Palestine
Armenia
indigenous folks
everywhere
does not feel adequate
is it standing
when i have voted
for people who
killed my family?
is it standing
when i go to a single
protest while you
are carpet bombed
with phosphor?
is it standing
when i realized politics
is not made for
someone like me and
i am next?
is it standing
when i am a settler
my indigeneity murdered
thousands of miles away?
is standing
flying across oceans
allowing my body
to ricochet off
the sea
into utopia and
oblivion?
what is standing
if not ableist
jargon that pretends
that i'm doing
anything at all?
i stand
you die
until tomorrow
i die
you stand
Trans and Palestine
if I was not trans
would Palestine be free?
no, then how fucking
dare you bring it up
instead of saying
Free Palestine!
Relinquish
we know it ends
in flame because those
with power were never
taught to relinquish
we wait for them to
