Gulistan / 2022

I am a person, I am a place

I exist

I am a flower that lives in the mountains

I am Gulistan

Land of the flowers

I am the sister who washes the dishes

I am the mother who weeps for the children I buried in the mountains

I am the wife who sold her gold for her husband’s bail

I am Gulê, the reason Shexo is in a dark cell

I am the aunt that sews all the dresses

I am invisible labor

Commodification

Objecthood

I can’t spell or you just don’t know how to read

I am the diaspora kid going to the bazaar to pathetically buy buy buy

stuff stuff stuff, to stuff stuff stuff my suitcase

I am the suitcase that says

“There is no suitcase big enough that will help you fill that void”

I am the father-in-law that asked for a handful of soil from the homeland

I am a stateless flag

I am a rag that was made from old clothes to wipe the kitchen counters with

I am the sumac that needs to be grinded

I am Gulistan

My mother tongue is a shard of glass, and my mouth is bleeding

I exist

Borders within borders

I sometimes think about the first person who must have drawn a line with a stick in the dirt and spoke

“This side is mine”

Imaginary place and people

Our occupiers and their sympathizers say we are not real.

I am real

Just because you can’t find me on the map doesn’t mean I am not real

I exist

I am Gulistan

I am a painting that can go on a floor like a rug,

be draped,

that one can wear,

or live inside.

Painting without paint.