A spoken word piece never to be spoken.

Written on the eighth anniversary of the American occupation of Iraq, to the sounds of Naseer Shamma, and the memories of a lifetime gone by.

Our anniversaries pass us by more quickly every year.

The destruction of a people broadcast in Technicolor for consumption by shattered eyes and wasteful minds. Scripted lines of hypocrisies and lies carve their trickery into my brother’s chest. The era of democracy by theft has its foot firmly rooted in the back of my mother’s neck. Those ballot boxes are bleeding to death, with every breath fighting against the diagnosis of silence. Violence in the contaminated breasts, rotten vegetables, polluted nests, and disfigured skies of Baghdad knows no rest. Delivered from the West, fighter jets drop fishing nets filled with hate and disrespect. A people broken into sects brings joy to the appetite of uninvited guests. The fate of hungry children scribbled on a contract bringing wealth to a Wall Street desk with no test or tribulation. How many more years of occupation? Rivers of tears and sweat flood our cities with devastation, while money flows back into the pockets of those who ordered my father’s assassination. This is Iraq. A country laid out flatly on its back by rolling tanks and decades of suffocation.

Our anniversaries pass by us more quickly every year.

Refugees sell their dignity at the nearest gas station. Girls sold on the streets of neighboring nations. Death by penetration for an entire generation. Patience is the religion for those who sleep under clouds of eternal frustration. Lost in the equation of oil, blood, and colonization. In search of government issued identification to stop their creation from turning into broken bones and dust. Their skin color is rust. Everything they eat brings disgust to mouths filled with distrust for every drop of rain and wind gust. The sun refuses to share its light on a nation whose exodus was shoved through the windows of the nearest bus. Out of Iraq. A country under attack. The lack of choices. The only voices we hear whisper that our anniversaries pass by us more quickly every year.

And that is my greatest fear.