Damsheka

The Ruins

I came back to Damsheka alone.
The path was silent, the air heavy with memory.
There was no one to greet me but my own heart,
So I spoke to it as if it were another companion
The only one who could understand the weight of this return.

Before me stood the house,
its walls broken, its windows hollow,
Yet my heart whispered: “Do you remember?”
And I answered it aloud,
As if speaking to an old friend who had waited too long.

The stones still carried the warmth of lives once lived,
And the fields still remembered the footsteps of children.
But the house… the house was no longer a house
It was a memory wearing the mask of ruin.

Oh, my heart, don’t ask me about love…
That was in that high tower.
That fell into ruins.

And so, the ruins spoke back to me,
not in words, but in silence,
and I realized I had not come to visit a place,
But to meet the ghost of myself.

Hamid Mernissi, May 6, 2024