Home

Illustration by Aude.

Before we go we tell our family here,
bidna nrawi7 3alal blad nshuf Sidi w Siti
We’re going back home to see my
grandparents.

ّWe’re not really,
going back home.
We didn’t come from there.

We’re from Palestine,
but Sidi w Sitti live in Amman,
but Baba was raised in Kuwait,
and Mama was raised in America.

None of us know Amman
the way people know
the corners and crevices of their hometowns.

We know the language,
inherited from our parents and grandparents.

The diasporic description of the desire to go
home.

When we leave Amman we tell our family there,
bidna nrawi7 3ala bladna
We’re going back home to our country.

It’s not really our country.
We didn’t come from there.
It was someone else’s country,
before colonizers claimed it as their own,
and is it really home?

Home is where the heart is,
I left my heart in San Francisco,
I left my life in San Francisco,
I left my heart in the hands of those I love.
Pieces strewn across the world. ◆

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Iman Alzaghari is a Muslim Palestinian American from California. She holds Bachelor's degrees in Arabic and Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley. Iman is an avid reader, and is passionate about language. She runs @arabicnerd, an Instagram account focused on Arabic and Arab-American literature.