In the middle of a hot desert night,
over these Arabian sand dunes came the Shi’ites.
With the sounds of their guns rat-ta tat tat,
we knew for sure we were under attack.

They came at us not because we’re bad,
not because we are a bother,
but because we don’t worship Allah, their god and their father.

We were the same in the beginning,
but diverged like the branches of a tree.
They took Ishmael and we the holy trinity.

They killed us not to gain supplies,
not to gain rations.
But they came to destroy us,
to conquer like the masses.

My house burned to the ground,
I see absolutely nothing as I look around.
Searching and panicking to find my daughters,
Dear Lord don't let them be part of this slaughter!

I searched where they played and frolicked when young,
I passed my friend in a palm tree as lifeless as the rope from which he hung.

What is this terrible totality today I have felt?


My beard, it itches from the heat like a great fire,
they had  told me to convert . I howled, “You’re all liars!”
They knocked me out, thought I was dead, and to this all I awoke.
“Mercy me!” I cry and begin to choke.
All these bad thoughts began to elope,
I want to see my daughters again, I hope.

I round about the block,
all I hear is the morning c***.
I see something in the distance. I run to it, a shape of joy.
I find the building is burnt inside; it’s where my daughters were when they died.
It’s such a sad time to be alive.

There’s blood everywhere.
I see their charred lifeless bodies sprawled out like they ran for the grass.
I stand in the spot my daughters died. Right here in this ash.