Why do you leave when you should stay?
Why do you laugh when you should stay silent?
Why are you silent when you should speak? 
Why the bags under your eyes?
Why do you stop writing?
Why do you turn your back on your friends and on life too?
Don’t explain anything to anyone.
Why do you put your heart out to dry
   like a piece of meat for fast-days?
Why do you poke out your eye
    with the finger of the one you love?
Why do you throw the memory of your body in the sea
    for the carnivorous fish?
Why do you often fall from the open would of life?
Why do you forget your keys outside the door?
Why do you prefer to walk barefoot when you have shoes?
Why have you stopped complaining and questioning
   yourself?
Why do you own everything and aren’t happy?
Don’t explain to anyone.
Something whose reasons you don’t know
Because when you left your country with a little backpack
You left behind you, there, all the answers.

Widad Nabi studied economics at the University of Aleppo. She has published three collections in Arabic. She lives in Berlin where she writes for Arab and German magazines. This poem is from Love and War, Contemporary Kurdish Woman poets, (Smokestack 2023).

Poetry submissions to thursdaypoems@gmail.com.