Beirut

I wake from another of my dreams of Lebanon. Beirut. Beyrouth. Berytus. I've never been, but I know her like the back of my hand, like the milky smell of my own mother. She and I are entwined by something ancient, thicker than blood.

Swaying with her palms, I succumb to her summer somnalance. My veil filters the dust, but it can't keep out the street - the unfilterable life spilling from her doorways, the teeming tumult of her inhabitants.

The smells are what I use to find my way around - I follow the rosemary as it follows the lamb, I dance towards the sizzling garlic, float into homes where bread lasts only as long as they children are at play in the street below, but they too are drawn in the same way I have been.

The music too - ferocious in its blind and blinding adherence to patterns that run deep, its form changing but its pirhouetting dreamscape vivid and palpably heartwrenching. It's this I follow tonight, it's the spinning, soaring heart that spills from its seams that I can't let go.

I'm once again swept up in her dervish spirit, once more transported to her outer edges, tasting her ravaged skin as it brushes my lips. She spins, I spin with her; I grow dizzy, but she grows reckless. My throat is parched, my words will not come. They don't see me anyway, they couldn't hear me if I tried. I understand their talk, I know what they think. I sense their hunger and long to embrace the children, dab at their encrusted eyes with my hem.

There are times both good and bad; it is, of course, a life like any other. A dreamlife, but no less real for it. Once, they could hear me. I could touch them. I belonged, you see, I was one of, one with. But it couldn't last.

This home, this returning, is my secret. I return each night. I grow bolder. Tonight, I resolve this - to be seen again. To speak. But, once more, I stay silent. Alone.

I wake, the taste of salt on my lips.