Love Blooms Between Berkeley Grad Student and Hizb’Allah

Cecilia Lucas, a grad student at Berkeley (surprise!) recently penned this love poem to Hizb’Allah:

I Don’t Want to Love You, But I Do

You were born out of death to a life in a cage
Where bombs are not the only reason people die
Fed by the violence of hunger and homelessness
Raised by colonialism
Your heart and your will still grew strong

You scare me
Not just because they tell me to be scared
Not just because they repeat, repeat, repeat
The story of 1983
Begging me to understand
Americans are worth more than Lebanese

Why do they never tell me about Jihad al Bina
That you have created so much
Saved so many lives
Improved so many more

It scares me
When I admit to myself
That I would be more scared without you
If I still took the time to see

To see the violence that does not just fall from the skies
that exists in hunger and homelessness
in colonialism

It scares me
That my hope is tangled up
In actions I would never want to commit

But I don’t sleep much these days
And I’ve tried hard
But I haven’t found
Anything
to give me hope that they will listen

They repeat, repeat, repeat
The story of Gaza withdrawal
Hoping we won’t see
The violence that continues
That kills in so many ways
Hoping we will now support it
Or at least stop looking

They insist talk does not work
When there is no one to talk to
It is hard to find an interlocutor
When you’re not willing to listen
To see
To feel

How do you keep faith that talk will work
When even they are insisting it won’t?

I am learning to have hope in you
I am learning to see you as so much more
Than those actions I would never want to commit

You amaze me.
Born out of death to a life in a cage
Raised by colonialism
You did not accept imprisonment as natural
You did not accept hunger as justice
You did not accept
the ceaseless killing in so many ways
Of those next to you
Or those farther away

I love you
But I will never be yours
I don’t want you inside me
You are too male for me

And I cannot, gratefully, fully silence the voice that insists:
Some deaths you did accept
Including of some who were listening

That is why the full statement that the question-marks pry me with reads:
It is sad, but I’m learning to have hope in Hizbulla

Maybe it is the naivety
of one whose life has never been directly threatened
I still believe:
Be the change you want to see in the world.

According to one source, Hizb’Allah loves her back:

You were born in the Valley to a life in a suburban cage
Encino, where mean girls and cheerleaders
Drop bombs of hate on the unpopular girls
Shy poetry club chicks like you
With 1480 SATs and early admission to Berkeley
Fed by the violence and lookism of the dance squad
Raised in a four bedroom colonial
They wouldn’t let you wear your Che T-shirt to prom
But your heart and your armpit hair still grew proud and strong

You scare me too
Not just because you have that Code Pink Manson girl freak-vibe
Not just because you repeat, repeat, repeat
All those quotes from your dog-eared volumes of Chomsky
and Zinn
and Edward Said
Begging me to understand
Can’t we just hold each other
Instead of talking, talking, talking
About your Masters thesis?

It scares me
When I admit to myself
When I look at you
My mousy infidel grad student who can’t shut up
That yeah, I’d hit that

The other Jihadis laugh and scowl
They repeat, repeat, repeat
The story of Abdul and the nasty crab lice
He picked from the International ANSWER chick
And how it itched like a mofo
Until his martyrdom

If only they took the time to see
To look
To sense
The beauty of your mind
Your fundraising potential
To look beyond your face
and realize your booty isn’t half bad
And how you could maybe help organize a sleeper cell in Oakland

But I don’t sleep much these days
And I’ve tried hard
But the thought of you, my beloved
And the Zionist airstrikes
Make me more jittery than chugging two liters of Jolt cola

I am learning to have hope in you
I am learning to see you as so much more
I am thinking maybe you could shave those legs and wear this grocery sack
If ever we make love

You amaze me.
Born in the suburbs
Raised in a colonial
You did not accept ROTC on Campus
You did not accept the injustice of UC defunding the Young Maoist League
You did not accept late homework submissions
Of fratboy freshmen
When you TA’d Critical Lit 1406

I love you too
But I will never be yours
I’m a rebel
A loner
I’m bad news, baby
And you don’t want me inside you
Because once you go Omar, you’ll never go kuffar

But we’ll resist together
You and I, my beloved hippie cooch
I will be your Jihadi Angel
The Leader of Your Pack
Turn me loose, turn me loose
Like Fabian
Like Bobby Vee
Like Elvis himself
I will croon my ballad of Zionist resistance
To your screams of delight

I had a dream that we met in Paradise
as lovers
as martyrs
Me in a Tel Aviv pizza parlor
You in the Encino mall

What was it you were looking for
That took your life that night?
They said they found my semtex belt
Clutched in your fingers tight.

Burma Shave