In a hundred years none of us will exist
ALAA HASANIN – Translated by: Ibrahim AL-Sharif
In a hundred years
none of us will exist
none of our big dreams
our small ones
our nightmares
our sleeping pills
the hours of long insomnia
nor the depression bouts
our morning anxiety
our old alarm clocks
that don’t work
the traffic jams
and pouting people
nor the street
the country
the country’s dreams
nor the country’s borders
that we drew
with blood and tears
nor our flags
or our national songs
our national sorrows
our national joys.
The gas salesman will disappear
the newscaster
the pretty lady in the advertisement boards
the public road
the toy shop
the beauty clinics
and the women swollen with Botox
and naivety.
Our kind fathers will disappear,
too kind,
our cruel fathers,
too cruel,
the mothers
bent over bread ovens,
and the feet of both life
and men.
Our pretty tyrants will disappear
along with their comedic speeches
that make no one laugh.
Exiles will disappear
ugly accents
native children of the country
children of god, and good luck.
Our lives will disappear
beyond the horizon
swept away by time
or thrown
into the sea
like excess weight.
In a hundred years
none of us will exist
and if we comeback one day,
after a hundred years,
we will barely
know the way home,
and when we stand in front of our doors
and knock on them with apprehension
it won’t be our mothers
that will open them for us.