and more than ever I am lifeless.

Like the rest of you, I once had a home, a country,

but no more.

I remember late one night the door being kicked,

an officer yelling, "Meeye Xunki. Halkaad ku qarinaysa ?"

And my terrified mother whimpering, "Mooyi. Wali mu iman."

He pushed her aside, ordered his jackbooted thugs to look

everywhere, and when they could not find me, he promised next time I wouldn’t be so lucky,

and stormed out of the house.

Home was no longer home.

In many ways though I am like everyone else.

I hold a job, go out on weekends, love baseball

and that is not even the half of it.

Linda bless her heart used to say:

"It must be hard speaking a different language."

She was right.

Still, many times I wanted to tell her

there was more to language than mere speech;

that no tongue tastes like another.

But I didn’t.

How could I, with her being so kind to me?

In a way I am even privileged,

for how many people get shitcanned

by more than one country?

I tell you, there are so many things I want to forget.

Like, for instance, the first cousin who was bayoneted to death by soldiers, when he refused to let them take his watch.

Not long after that, I mailed his picture to an arms manufacturer

here in this great city

with a note: Human Sacrifice.

It is not that I like to dwell on things like this.

No, I was not always like this.

I keep telling myself, it’s time to put this thing behind you.

Time to move on.

But as soon as I say this, I am back to square one.

One more thing about Linda,

and this is not going to win me any points,

but I did promise to tell the truth:

I made it with her sister.

She kept insisting on teaching me skiing;

Linda did not object.

She even added, "you may like it."

Well, I did.

First we slid down the snow,

then nearby, it was her and I naked,

with the forest reeking of our lust.

Of course that’s no way to reward kindness.

But how could I have known

there was more to the offer than skiing?

To betray or be betrayed, why does it always come to this?

To say in one tongue what belongs to another,

isn’t that also a kind of betrayal?

As I search for the right words, the appropriate phrase,

pick a fight with one verb, make peace with another,

try to master the secrets of this stubborn language,

resist being overwhelmed by its sheer weight,

and above all, tell my story.

Or is this too much to ask for?

When I told a friend of mine that I am writing my story, he answered:

"There’s already enough sadness in the world."

Was he right?

Am I only bringing more sadness into the world?

And yet, I do know that since I have lost one war,

it is my destiny to fight another—of verbs, nouns,

syntax, grammar.

How much I hated grammar,

and here I’m again face to face with it:

the comma versus the period, the question mark and its allies,

a war against an army of metaphors

tearing me into a thousand pieces, leaving me without a center.

But oddly enough, it was also then that I discovered certain things about myself,

how widespread is the rot.

My first instinct was to cover it up, hide it.

It didn’t work.

So, I went on the offensive, started digging up my own dirt, rubbing myself with it,

accepting it as an integral part of me.

It almost worked.

But as I’m absorbed with myself, other thoughts intrude,

and I say to myself, your plight is nowhere as bad

as the dear aunt, who first lost her only son to a land mine,

then lost her mind.

She still engages in these long conversations with him to this day,

as if he were still around, as if nothing happened.

Her mind was stretched beyond its limit.

Unable to find comfort in the present, she ransacks the past.

Sometimes, I ask myself, if I have also reached that point?

I tell myself, once, there were so many natives on this very land.

Now calling them a minority is considered doing them a favor.

History is such a bitch.

It’s past midnight in this pub, and the pain I came here

to get rid of is still with me.

The fire, in this artificial fireplace, is still raging,

breaks into so many colors,

with phosphoric blue at its center.

The bartender abruptly turns off the jukebox,

announcing, "Is Bob here?"

The guy behind me protests, "I paid for it."

Someone else declares, "Wallace Stevens was dishonest.

He had a job he could always go back to."

I came here to escape, instead

everyday I face another death.