The Architect of Morning
What if dawn hesitates at my window,
afraid to wake the refugee's dreams?
I teach my shadow to walk ahead—
it knows the Damascus streets I've never seen.
My homeland lives in my mother's teacup,
its borders drawn in cardamom and grief.
The map I carry rewrites itself each night,
erasing roads that lead me home.
We built our house from borrowed years.
Each room holds a different season of loss,
but jasmine climbs through the cracks,
stubborn as prayer.
In the space between heartbeat and hope,
I measure distances in my father's sighs.
Light moves faster than forgetting,
but slower than the ache in my chest.
This morning I watched the sun rehearse,
stumbling like a child learning new words:
"Every ending learns to begin again
in the language of return."
So I build my country one breath at a time,
not from what was lost,
but from the seeds my grandmother
sewed into my jacket's hem.
The morning I'm waiting for
hasn't crossed the border yet.
I learn to be its architect.
Dawn finally speaks—
it whispers through the open window:
"Come home."
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