I am here today

Sometimes roses bloom in ashes

I am here today

I wrote this in September.

I found it while scrolling through my Notes app to validate this ADHD meme going around. One that shows all the unfinished, incomprehensible notes scribbled down by someone who experiences ADHD.

Instead I found poem upon poem. Poetry as procrastination? I’ll take it.

This one got me in the feels so I’m sharing. It’s about noticing. And about two lovers who found each other in this part of the world at this exact time in history despite their ancestral homelands being destroyed by evil, terrorism, and war. Actually, only because of it. Sometimes roses bloom in ashes. 🌹♥️

I am here today, and that means 
A thousand million things had to
go right.
Every street crossed safely.
Every angry person passed uneventfully.
The super sharp chef’s knife at the culinary school
merely nicked me.

I was not abducted on the way to work.
No glass from a mid-construction condo tower
fell on my head.
A mass murderer did not enter the theatre while
I laughed freely with my friends.

The protest was peaceful;
So was the morning.
My parents survived the night.
My kids got home from hanging out with friends.
My lover woke me from my screaming nightmare,
featuring a creepy blonde GenZ-er,
grimacing in my dead aunt’s living room.

I am here today, he said, and that means
A thousand million things had to 
go wrong so that this could go right.

Alhamdulillah

~ Nadine Araksi

♥️♥️♥️

Be well, friends. I am praying for peace.