Echoes Of Eden

In the beginning, there was only dust

and a tent stitched from hunger.

A family planted their shadows there,

believing roots could be spun out of cloth.

Then came a rich man,

a man of gold and gospel,

laying bricks like commandments,

cementing laws where none had been spoken.

He carved floors as if carving destiny,

gifted one to the family,

then sold them their own breath back

as rent.

But gods are cruel,

and mortals crueller.

From the alleys rose a tyrant,

a child of conquest,

who seized the keys with fists of thunder

and declared even silence his servant.

The tyrant, too, grew weary.

He left;

yet the locks still sang his name,

the rivers bent to his thirst,

the fires burned only when he permitted flame.

Absence is sometimes

just another form of presence.

Generations passed.

Until one day, 

a cult dressed as descendants 

rose and screamed:

“Before there were bricks, there was dust.

Before dust, there was us.”

So they struck fire,

believing fury could reclaim Eden.

But fury is a serpent that coils back,

and the after-bite was theirs to suffer.

Every wound a question,

every scar an echo of their own hand.

The tyrant returned,

his armies marching like eclipses,

and soon the house became a battlefield of echoes;

every wall a prophet of ruin,

every stair a grave,

every door a lament sung to deaf gods.

Who’s right, who’s wrong, 

what does it matter

when every skin

already smells of grenades and bullets?

Borders are inventions,

histories are rehearsed,

and convenience sells itself

to the highest bidder.

So tell me

who owns the house?

And now ask yourself,

would your answer still be the same

if I told you

the house was Palestine.