My Beirut

Beirut left home, for the third time in the past hour, for countries and nations that saw her burn and shatter into pieces, for a more stable and more normal life. Although Beirut left, she didn’t give up, she would never accept that this is the future of her home.

Beirut, for the first time in forty-five years, stood still. The world stood still at 6:08 p.m. on the 4th day of August 2020.

Beirut stole a piece of bread today to feed her family. She never considered herself a thief in the past, but she is pushed to the corner needing to decide whether to steal or let her children starve to death.

Beirut hugged her friend when she found him after he was missing for the past week, buried under the debris and fallen architectures. Beirut called her loved one, to make sure they were still alive, they finally answered.

Beirut, fear in her heart and her eyes, rescued wounded victims that were buried underground after declared missing for a few days. Beirut carried them on her back and them to the hospital in ambulances. Beirut was sent to the port to turn off the fire but never came back. Beirut is a hero.

Beirut, broom & mop in hand, went to clean up her home, helping her fellow Lebanese hurt and incapable of standing up on their own. Beirut, wearing cap and gown, drove at dawn to start rebuilding the broken houses, observing what used to be the nightlife and the perfect mix of old and new architectures of which we were all proud.

Beirut has still not processed the massive explosion and wonders if it was just an illusion, even three weeks later. The clock hands of her watch are stuck at 6:08 p.m. on the 4th of August 2020. Sitting in her apartment that she and her husband furnished fifty years ago, she plays a melancholic melody on the piano covered in fractions of glass, pieces of wood, and broken tiles.

Beirut wore black today, cried rivers, and mourned her friend while carrying him in his coffin on her shoulders. At fifteen years old, Beirut buries his comrade five feet underground along with his future, dreams, and hopes.

Beirut gave birth to her daughter on the 4th of August while the port caught fire and exploded. Lying on a hospital bed, covered in glass that got to her skin, Beirut welcomed a new hope in her broken home.

Beirut lost her three-year-old girl today and wonders if she could turn back time, what she could’ve done to save her while thousands of scenarios run through her mind. Despite the piece of her heart that she lost, she is not leaving home.

Beirut is still lost, buried under the fallen walls and dining tables. No one found her yet. No one knows if she could’ve survived that long.

Beirut woke up from a coma today and looks at her arms and legs wrapped in casts and clothes covered in blood, her family looking at her with tears in their eyes. Two weeks after the explosion, Beirut is numb, barely remembering the ceiling that fell around her and the glass that flew across the walls of what used to be the place she felt the safest.

Beirut said no to a person offering her money for her shattered house, barely holding it together to save her heritage, her history. This hammer beat Beirut to the ground; now covered in ashes and shattered glass, she knows that she will rise, for the eighth time.

Beirut lost her head today, trying to save her children by driving them away from this atrocity, she left them behind. She won’t see her children graduating, getting married, and building a life for themselves.

Beirut shed tears when she looked at herself in the mirror, all torn apart and broken into pieces. Some pieces left home today, others left us for good without a goodbye.

But the truth is that Beirut never left. She didn’t die, she is tired, broken, and in pieces scattered around the world. Beirut has been robbed by corruption, war, hate, sectarianism, tyrants that call themselves “politicians” a title they do not deserve, and issues that we, as Lebanese have to face every day. How many daughters and sons do we have to put in the ground before we realize that the wrong people are destroying our homes?

Beirut has always been here for you. Beirut was there for your first steps, for the first time you took the wheel and drove around her hidden passageways and oldest houses, for the first time you set footstep in a classroom in school until the last, for the first time you wore your cap and gown and threw your graduation cap in the air. We got to a point where we are ready to trade Beirut’s sovereignty to give her the country she deserves because we almost admitted defeat to this weight that keeps getting heavier and heavier on us as days pass.

However, no matter how hard we try, we can never lose hope in the city of Beirut in which we always wanted to live, the one that our Lebanon deserves. Leaving doesn’t mean that you lost hope because when you’re Lebanese, you can never surrender. You can move across the globe, but you can never replace that piece of your heart reserved for Beirut.

We all have a piece of Beirut in us, whether we are thousands of kilometers away from Beirut, or live in Beirut. Whether we grew up there, recently moved there, recently left her, Beirut took a special place in each of our hearts and made it hers. Only when we all come together, she’s complete, she’s alive, and she rises again, and again.