hello again, Jerusalem

the city of creatures is alive as ever, and I notice things for the first time amoung the all-seeing stones. like giant jade trees, more than the soldiers in number - if you can believe it there are that many jade trees though the same colour as the young guns, they are far prettier.

this is my first time noticing the jade trees, because there are more distracting things in Jerusalem than succulents...

my young relationship with the old city is changing as I grow, buying tobacco to roll myself, I'm a grown-up now and this is how I roll - shittily, mostly straight, and only socially, only sometimes… this place makes you want a cigarette, but I don't feel guilty about it. I haven't had much success with guilt. I go this way and then that way, then up and down and over and over again, yet I am here again only lost once, like the maze is becoming a friend. this time I see more soldiers than I saw before, on newly nested perches built so that the people look up to them, whether or not they actually do. but, I see more soldiers less than I did before. the city of creatures is alive as ever, and I notice things for the first time amoung the all-seeing stones. like giant jade trees, more than the soldiers in number - if you can believe it there are that many jade trees though the same colour as the young guns, they are far prettier.

this is my first time noticing the jade trees, because there are more distracting things in Jerusalem than succulents.

and amoungst the fun and tricks

and laughter echoing along streets of corridors, it's like life moves anyway while people are occupied, except for those who've gone since I last came, and those I can't see because someone made them build a wall around their own families. fuckers. yet that fucking wall I still see it because it cannot be unseen once your eyes have been opened, not for all the jade trees or the uprooted olive trees. this is how I *rolls the tobacco leaves.* my navy blouse long-sleeved silk, waving sheer in my shadow, is hot as I try modesty on - that and I'm not sure what to do with the (lack of) colour of my own skin. I want to take it all off and just be here, cool and comfortable. but to be here is to be hot and uncomfortable. at least it feels like that, again. Some of the people say, "Please go," Some of them say, "Please stay." "Them," I say, because we've told them they are they, and not us or we and I am... you can call me a colonizer or a sympathizer, because who am I to say I'm neither. I'm not sure. But I'm here. Hello again, old stones. while I sit around the table,

invited to share in stories and laughter

and the essentials of humanity am I supposed to be here allowed to be here wanted or unwanted here a colonizer here abandoning there? Hello again, Jerusalem, here I am. these are questions that no longer fill my mind the way they used to along the maze, the maze that is becoming my friend full of enemies, the eccentric, the strangers, lovers, acquaintances. I am just here. Again, Jerusalem I am here. I'm not as angry as I once was, though it's still there amoungst the ramblings and the finding my place in privilege, and when I get deja vu every time they spread the legs of the young boys again and again oh it's not deja vu, again Jerusalem, I am here. whether or not it matters. deja vu. I laugh, less angry with those who taught me this the greatest lesson: laughter is a practice for the living. but you have to practice. and we do it with wine in hand