Love is a pendulum that beats irregularly.
The past is a broken grandfather clock.
It’s a hole.
She points to the bombed-out building. Her tiny arm is a compass needle.
She is six years old, and Beirut is a city where ugly and beautiful sit too close together.
When she visits her relatives in her grandmother’s old village, the only way she can communicate is by repeating what her cousins say in Arabic. She is the family parrot.