English pronouns
Mwaffaq Alhajjar
In English,
I write to you
Because we both know
How hard it is
for us to be
Falling off
the cliff of
the same language.
Did you sail before?
I once wanted to go with you to see the sea.
And this poem is a boat.
I wanted to hold your hand.
It is light to say it in English,
‘Hold your hand’
Helium-ize it
Your ‘hand’ could fly!
and rest upon my chest.
/regardless the endless distance/
It is heard to say it in English
For I'm wordless with you in Arabic.
Put out the fire
/your cigarette/
and tell me
how do you dry your hair
When you drown in desire?
How do you spell my name
when you call me from there?
How do you think I’m exiled
when we see the same sky?
In English, we both are ‘they’
and they won't see the difference
between you and me.
‘they’ means us.
‘they’ is a mirror.
Let us love in a different language,
Let us love in their language,
it doesn’t need to be ours
what is ours?
A mountain, once told me
Don't look back while ascending.
A house, once said
Don’t you forget to close the door.
A song, once hummed
take heed of the language of the singer.
And now what’s left?
a vestige of our tomorrow?
a rhyme of our poem?
In English I write to you,
because you won't read it.
and that’s enough for me to say
I love you.
I write to you
Because we both know
How hard it is
for us to be
Falling off
the cliff of
the same language.
Did you sail before?
I once wanted to go with you to see the sea.
And this poem is a boat.
I wanted to hold your hand.
It is light to say it in English,
‘Hold your hand’
Helium-ize it
Your ‘hand’ could fly!
and rest upon my chest.
/regardless the endless distance/
It is heard to say it in English
For I'm wordless with you in Arabic.
Put out the fire
/your cigarette/
and tell me
how do you dry your hair
When you drown in desire?
How do you spell my name
when you call me from there?
How do you think I’m exiled
when we see the same sky?
In English, we both are ‘they’
and they won't see the difference
between you and me.
‘they’ means us.
‘they’ is a mirror.
Let us love in a different language,
Let us love in their language,
it doesn’t need to be ours
what is ours?
A mountain, once told me
Don't look back while ascending.
A house, once said
Don’t you forget to close the door.
A song, once hummed
take heed of the language of the singer.
And now what’s left?
a vestige of our tomorrow?
a rhyme of our poem?
In English I write to you,
because you won't read it.
and that’s enough for me to say
I love you.
Mwaffaq Alhajjar is a Syrian poet, engineer and educator. He published his first collection of poetry, Poetic Entropy, in 2019 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, via Gerakbudaya. Mwaffaq now is doing his masters in comparative literature and is interested in the Untranslatabilities in Literature.
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