Hello Again, Jerusalem

my young relationship 
with the old city 
is changing as I grow,
buying tobacco to roll
myself, I'm a grown-up now
and this is how I roll -
shittily, mostly straight, and only socially,
only sometimes.

this place makes you want a cigarette.
I don't feel guilty about it.
I haven't had much success with guilt.

I go this way
and then that way
then up and down
and over and over again,
yet I am here again
only lost once,
like the maze is becoming a friend.

this time I see more soldiers
than before, on newly nested perches 
built so that the people look up to them,
whether or not they do.

but I see more soldiers
less than I did before.

the city of creatures 
is alive as ever,
and I notice things
for the first time amoung the stones.
like giant jade trees
more than the soldiers in number,
if you can believe it there are that many
jade trees
though the same colour as the young guns,
they are far prettier.
although, this is my first time noticing the jade trees,
because there are more distracting things
in Jerusalem than succulents.

I also see fun along the road of the enemy:
those who don't know me see 
different things than me,
or what I assume they see
when they see me.

it's like life moves anyway
while people are occupied,
except for those who've gone
since I last came,

and those I can't see
because someone made them
build a wall around their own families. 
fuckers.


I still see the wall though because 
it cannot be unseen.
not for all the jade trees or
the uprooted olive trees.
this is how I *rolls the tobacco leaves.*

oh, and also I don't see
those who aren't here because
they can't be
here like me, though they have more right
than I, if humans did what is right.


my navy blouse long-sleeved silk, 
waving sheer in my shadow,
is hot as I try modesty on - 
that and I'm not sure what to do with the
(lack of) colour of my own skin.
I want to take it all off
and just be here,
cool and comfortable.

but to be here is to be 
hot and uncomfortable.
at least it feels like that, again.

Some of them say,
"Please go,"
Some of them say,
"Please stay."
"Them," I say,
because we've told them
they are they,
and not us or we
and I am...
you can call me a colonizer 
or a sympathizer, 
because who am I
to say I'm neither.
I'm not sure.
But I'm here.
Hello again, old stones.

and again,
for me this is changing...
perhaps I care less,
perhaps it's the settling into privilege, or
perhaps it's the healthiest option -
survival with some self-diagnosed ignorance-is-bliss -

you know, those tricks I've learned from
the people who welcome me
to this land, and invite me
to laugh around their table sharing stories
about playing games with the guards,
(you know, to teach them how to laugh),
and being beaten by a 13-month-old,
(you know, learning non-violence from a toddler),
they put our morality to the test.

am I 
supposed to be here
allowed to be here
wanted or unwanted here
a colonizer here
abandoning there?
Hello again, Jerusalem, here
I am.

these are questions
that no longer fill my mind
the way they used to
along the maze,
the maze that is becoming my friend
full of enemies, the eccentric, 
the strangers, lovers, acquaintances.
I am just here.
Again, Jerusalem I am here.

I'm not as angry
as I once was,
though it's still there
amoungst the ramblings and
the finding my place in privilege, and when 
I get deja vu 
every time they spread the legs
of the young boys
again and again
oh it's not deja vu,
again Jerusalem,
I am here.
whether or not it matters.
deja vu.

I laugh, less angry with
those who taught me 
this the greatest lesson:
laughter is a practice
for the living.

but you have to practice.

and we do it
with wine in hand
tears in our eyes
and colours of skin
we cannot shed.


Hello Again, Jerusalem,
again, 
I am 
here.

- Charlie Gray