California Dreamin'

 On my way to work, the sun shines in my face, I love it, a long stop and go drive that hurts my back, still the gentleness of the sun makes it better

The warm sun reaches out, silky, touches me, touches my frozen heart and melts the icicles that has been forming since I left home.

I think about community, friends and unfriends.

New concepts I learned here, new dimensions that I experienced

The sun touches my fragile soul, lovers’ lips caressing my wounds

California 

What a harsh place, what a beautiful place

San Francisco, my old love who teased me

Then loved me 

Then abandoned me

Then loved me again

How do I feel about you?

Amman forgot me 

Ottawa forgot me

And now here I am 

I don’t trust you

I believe in the sun though

I see your homeless children and still cry to this day. Somehow can’t get used to the idea.

You do invoke my fears and feels

I was your homeless child,

I was born homeless, 2 weeks after the defeat

But that’s ok,

Because this is how the world became my home

I chose you to be my new home

For now

I chose you ya habibti to find me inside you

For now

And at times I hate you, 

You can be so cruel 

So reckless

Your earthquakes

Your injustice

But

You were and will always be special to me

A new flavor of home

I hear you speak to me in Arabic

Funny, isn’t it

Pure intuition was you

Even though you fucked me up

I love your sun

And I’m here to stay

And learn 

And unlearn

And grow together

Play together on the beach

I walk on the sand and the ocean playfully erases my footsteps

I build bridges and dams and the sea cruelly wipes them off the face of the planet

Powerless I feel

But that’s ok, 

That’s the way to empowerment

I write things on papers and burn them

I carve things on wood and throw them into your ocean

I wait for the earthquake patiently

The earthquake that will make us all equal 

You, a strangled past and unsure future

You my first love

My first abortion

You, pure intuition

Believe me there is something in the air

Something about this place

They talk to me - the people of the past 

There is something that feels like home

And grandmas that feel like my own

I don’t have to justify this love

Or hate

Or conflicting feelings about what San Francisco means to me

One thing I know for sure, is the sun

The love of my life