Mokhtar
Who is he?
He is fearful, but determined. He suffers but is happy.
Brother of a legend lost in deaths embrace.
He loves all that encompasses change.
Be it God’s religion that turns him into a good man.
Or a place where he finds all that there is within himself.
He always strives to be the best him he possibly can be.
It is he who fears losing loved ones.
It is he who feels nothing but emptiness in recognition from others.
It is he who fears unoriginality, to be someone who he isn't.
Mokhtar is the man who wants to see it all.
He yearns for what he doesn't know.
He wants to feel the sun's kiss of Arabia's desserts. He wants to reclaim the home of his ancestors in ancient Palestine.
He wants to die peacefully in prostration in God's house.
Resident of a nation Young and Great in might, currently being torn apart by ignorance and hate. Such is the case of his United States.
Mokhtar, “he who is chosen”.
For what, he does not know yet.
That's what he seeks to discover as he writes.
He writes to find out “Who am I?”
Well I write and say
Mokhtar!
That is who I AM!
He who is chosen
To wield the pen!
A reflection is on the white board
It’s the shapes of the light fixtures above me
But wait? How does this work?!
Reflection and shadow try their best to replicate
Do they mourn their lack of clarity and unoriginality?
Representing your own doubts and questions
they’re quick and temporary
What’s going to happen next?
Red and white and short and fat
Filled with air and souls that stitch themselves to one another
And If it feels right
It isn’t the bodies that are wrapping themselves around eachother
You’re looking out for yourself
Is there a name for that?
In either case are you bound to death?
How is it decided which leaves of the summer tree grow first
Do they feel fear, watching their branch-mates brown and loose grip on what birthed them?
But it’s interesting that he sets up a kind of structure, and it’s an interesting structure
back to school, in the fall.
the sun still beating down on sidewalks,
baking skin and half-dead leaves.
trapped inside a classroom
with similar minds.
cramped by unoriginality and theories.
longing to stand in the wind,
or lay in the grass.
with blue skies and the warm kiss of sun,
allowing a pen to scribble without censorship.
all my thoughts, feelings, crimes.
no one to grade them.
no one to judge.
but still i will sit.
in new clothes and cut hair.
counting the days that pass.
with bad photographs, failed tests,
trips on yellow monsters.
back to school, back to imprisonment.
mold my mind, your times almost up.
graduation in june.
then freedom.
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