By Maggie Dressler

كنتُ أتمنى الانتماء
مع شخص
أو في مكان

طوال طفولتي تخيلتُ
شعوراً
يمكنه أن ينتمي لي يوم من الأيام

هل يوجد شعوراً مثل ذلك؟

بحثتُ
فشلتُ
صرختُ

سمعتُ
صوتك وأنتَ تدعوني إليك
ورأيتُ
كل ما تمنيته
—الانتماء—
في كيانك

I used to long for belonging
with a person
or in a place

All through my childhood I imagined
a feeling
that could belong to me someday.

Does a feeling like that exist?

I searched
I failed
I screamed

I heard
your voice as you called me to you
and I saw
everything I longed for

—belonging—

in your being.

Maggie Dressler grew up attending a Palestinian school in East Jerusalem. There, she found a love for the beauty of Arabic poetry while memorizing and reciting it for some of her classes. This poem is about her lifelong search for belonging, and what it has felt like to find pieces of it in the people and places she has encountered over the years.