First they came for the land

ripping roots like teeth

from the smiling faces of children.

They come for the mothers

who cry for yesterday's trees

and the memories of destroyed villages.

Bleeding women who clutch the air

for stolen children and mourn

the martyrs of tomorrow.

They come for the fathers

who cling to hope like an anthem

on a broken record of sumoud,

repeating the most urgent of prayers.

Then they come for the tears..

which multiply at night like distant screams,

left unchecked and deafening.

I tried to stop them!

My small lone frame,

my large, loud voice;

flattened by the invaders fears,

so foreign and menacing.

Their fears!

Enough to turn

my yellow hair...

red!

They came for me,

an American;

until I was as dead,

as the flag I was wrapped in...

The flag I burned only yesterday!

They came for Palestine;

and took my life, my warrior blood!

I, not of bombs and bullets

but JUSTICE and MERCY-

So foreign and menacing...

My blood: American!

My heart: Palestinian!