Mithley Van Buuren

“I whispered to my heart “Is everything meaningless?”

“It doesn’t really matter,” It smiled. “Nothing matters.”
― Juansen Dizon, I Am The Architect of My Own Destruction

“I hadn't told them about you,
But they saw you bathing in my eyes.
I hadn't told them about you,
But they saw you in my written words.
The perfume of love cannot be concealed.”
― Nizar Qabbani, Arabian Love Poems: Full Arabic and English Texts

“i can only

give to you

what i have already

given to myself

i can only

understand

the world as much as

i understand myself”
― yung pueblo, Inward

“They say the world will end soon.
They say that the nuclear weapons made,
Due to fearing 'the other',
Has become a curse, a plague, a scourge
On those who made them
Even more than those they were made to scare...
And I wonder:
Will the nuclear weapons be the cause of world’s end?
Or will world’s end be caused by humanity’s fear, complicity, and submission?

And if what they say is true,
Before the world ends and before I die,
I wish to drink one last cup of cardamom-flavored tea
Taste one last fig, peach, or apricot,
Smell a quince,
Dip one last piece of bread
In Palestinian thyme and olive oil…

Before the world ends,
I wish to smell a few pine needles,
To breathe the smell of the first rain shower
After a long, hot, and dry summer…

Before the world ends and before I die,
I wish to read one more book
Out of the thousands of books that I still want to read…

Before the world ends and before I die,
I ask for one more spring
To smell bunches of Iraqi narcissus flowers.
I want to live one more autumn,
To enjoy the magical colors
Of the dying leaves on the trees
As they challenge death with beauty
Right before falling on the grounds of indifference…

But my biggest wish before I die is
For my death not to be the end of the world…

[Original poem published in Arabic on October 13 at ahewar.org]”
― Louis Yako