Yes, the fog has lifted.
I can almost think again.
Mostly about words,
what remains of them,
where they are stored.
No doubt it is January,
outside the trees strip
like bodies.
Though I fear storms,
I like their aftermath.
I scribble this down--
my handwriting too old,
in fact too young,
to still be mine.
But who else will claim it?
I did not want to be
mysterious to myself,
and so comprehensible
to the city. This city
that smells like fried eggplant
and gasoline,
impossible to scrub off.
If only I leave it alone.
If only you ask where it hurts.
I’ll point to my throat.
Or your face. How they ask
for more than I can give.
Nur Turkmani is a writer and researcher in Beirut. Her research looks at displacement, social movements, and agriculture. She’s an editor-at-large for Rusted Radishes, Beirut’s Literary Journal, and her poetry, fiction, and essays are published in West Branch, Poetry London, Wilderness Journal, Jadaliyya, Syria Untold, and others. She studied creative writing at Oxford University, and politics at the London School of Economics and American University of Beirut.