You Came into My Dream

A letter to my brother Hudayfah (2000–2016)

When you came, I paid no attention to your clothing, whether you were holding something in your hand. A letter from There?
Are your hands still small? Could they carry a heavy letter written by Fate? Fate, whose sharp fingernails scratch open my back’s skin as it misspells my name.

I knew I was dreaming. But why haven’t I even conversed with you? Maybe ask if you saw Grandfather up There? Maybe he is still stuck and planted in Yaffa somewhere, tending an aging orange tree?
What kept my mouth from opening? (Silence makes my mouth sour.) Was I put inside a glass medicine bottle on which They wrote not “Keep out of reach of children,” but “Keep silent in and out.”
Who, what, are They?

Your sight was so fresh and sharp that I felt you could see through me, into my bleeding past. I am crying, but my tears are cold. Tears are falling on my feet, they burn the tiny, dark hairs on my toes. My feet are bare. I have been walking for a long time, and the road is strewn with the remains of my grandfather’s bombed grave.