About | I fall asleep on a jagged rock

Ah Malak alzumarud,
I feel like this pillow is made of rock… and the mattress as well
of jagged rock…
Look, at the moonlight, it’s like a dagger piercing through the table leg, It’s boring…
like the silence of the night, when the chill of alienation envelops you.
I wonder…
If I were in my room now, what would I do?
Would I make coffee, or finish what I’ve been reading…
Hey, Malak…
Things are turning into stone…
Even the air in this room
I can feel it…
Do you hear me?
Hey, Malak…
My voice whispers out
whispers
whispers
…
He fades into the silence,
Disappearing, as usual… leaving me in distress
I stay in the waves of darkness…
listening to jazz
I remember the news, full of the dead…
and hear the cries of wounded children…
Dust rises through the air
In Ghouta, where there are hospitals and buildings that
collapse under blind bombardment
I wonder…
lying on this jagged rock…
What was the fault of the people?
And what was the fault of…
Coming down, through the roof…
— Malak alzumarud, I mean, interrupts my thoughts
Then he squats under the – quite ordinary – table
The moonlight, piercing like a dagger, glows green
The room is stained…
He places his index finger on his green lips
and beckons in the silence.
I hear a plane outside,
bombing,
screaming in the street
I turn up the volume of the music…
And like a thousand other eyelids,
I fall asleep on a jagged rock

February 2018, Tikrit, Nadeem Al-Aloosi
Translation: March 2022, Dresden, Rachel C. Walker and Nadeem Al-Aloosi

Year of Composition

2022-2023

Dedication

Allen Otte