There is blood dried into the starch-white sheets that encase the body of the boy who was killed in Jerusalem. In a video in my facebook feed, the shabab heave his body up over the wall.
When I wake up, I find that I have bled on my sheets. Pain is radiating through my thighs from my cervix. Ninety degree heat ripples off the asphalt. The air today feels heavy and sticky. Later, thunderstorms roll in and wash everything away.
My brother returns home pale in a drenched white t-shirt. My brother returns home in the middle of the night blasting an Oum Kalthoum cassette out of our old ’98 Camry. He says his friends laughed at him when he put it on—called it “ISIS’ greatest hits.” His voice quivers as he tells me that he realized his friends don’t see him as Arab.
This morning, the sky threatens to storm again. There are pink ghosted blood stains on my bedsheets. I am safe at home. Everything still feels sticky. The facebook feed loops the video again and again.