“Parallel Lives,” a Poem by Eman Abdelhadi

On one screen,
bulbous bones push to escape
skin translucent like the situation.
There is no formula.
I blink my eyes over those
little ashen faces.

Always, always those little ashen faces.
Helpless, I tweet.
Run from meeting to meeting,
gaze out of my second screen,
where the masses walk dogs,
sip lattes and steal glimpses into my life.

I have to focus…
on writing the book
that no one will read.
I spend evenings
between Xs and speech bubbles,
starting stories I don’t intend to finish.
I am not the hinge,
shower me with possibility.

I’ll repot the plants today.
I’ll give my tears a chance to catch up with me.
I’ll throw a dinner party with the damned.
I’ll pick impossible recipes and brag
about having grown the herbs myself.
I’ll bask in all the compliments
“You’re such a good host.”
“I’m just an Arab woman.”

Later, I’ll let you push my face into a pillow,
wrap your arms tight around my throat.
I won’t tell you that I can’t breathe.

I’ve been courting death
ever since life wouldn’t text me back.
Glee when the turbulence
gets going going going.
But then I think about the other passengers
Shame can filter madness, you know?

My eyes sneak under his windshield at the intersection.
Maybe he won’t look up in time.
I beckon him dare him beg him
onward onward onward
don’t stop, baby keep going
please please please.
He meets my gaze while hitting the brakes.
I lament, again, that
I am simply
not
important
enough
to
warrant
a fucking
assassination.

Pati texts me to ask which of the food in the fridge she should
throw out.
My rotting greens won’t save anyone.
I am sorry for having all this.
I wasn’t supposed to have any of this.
I don’t even want any of this.
I don’t care about any of this.
I’d give it all up, you know?
I would.
Really, really, I would.
Do you believe me?
I swear. I swear. I swear.
Dare me. Double dog dare me.

It was
just luck.
I got to watch them all die,
because I was the lucky one.

“Is this survivor’s guilt?”
I ask another writer at her book launch.
“Guilt is selfish,” she says.
So I schedule the next meeting.

Organize! Organize! Organize!
We can only win together!
Collective liberation!

Do I believe me?

I kneel down beside the curtain
and tell my therapist
I’d rather be with the dead.
He says it’s uncharacteristically lazy,
scrunching his face and curling his lips
and apologizing for sounding judgmental.
“The thing is, I admire the hell out of you,” he says.
“But I know you don’t need that shit”

Smile for the camera.
Raise my fist for the crowd.
Shout for the mic.
I am the mother fucking revolution.
Sip a $25 martini.
It’s a caviar revolution.

We didn’t think it would last this long.
Is it 3ayb to start dancing again?
Go dancing at the protest
Go dancing after the protest
Go dancing as the protest

He asks me what I’m looking for
“I guess I want you to pin me against a wall
and fuck me into an abyss.”
That man wasn’t ready.
I smirk and release his gaze.
“You can’t handle an Arab woman.”

By night, I walk through Alexandria
looking for the sea.
By day, I pick through our apocalypse,
looking for somewhere to bury my grief.

__________________________________

Parallel Lives by Eman Abdelhadi is excerpted from the forthcoming anthology titled: Homosexual Intifada: A Queer Palestinian Anthology, edited by George Abraham and Hannah Moushabeck. On sale June 2nd, 2026 from Interlink Publishing, the only Palestinian-owned publisher in the United States.