My Love, you make it so hard to love you I tried to stop loving you. I spent years trying to pretend like I don’t know you, but that only made me hurt deeply. Then I spent years learning how to love you. Because when I love you, darling, I love me too.

I have your photo as a screensaver. I listen to songs other lovers wrote about you. I envy the fact that they have vivid joyful memories of you They have touched your ground, swam in your ocean. While my memories of you drain my eyes of tears and agonize my soul in pain. Yet, I can’t help but love you. Like I said when I love you I love me too.

You aren’t always loveable, but you are worthy of love.

And dangerous.

Like a Black Widow, all your lovers die. But I can’t help thinking that, unlike the black widow’s lovers, yours die before they have served their purpose.

How much more bloodshed will it take for your ground to be satisfied? When will you get mad and swallow all those who mean to harm you? Instead of letting cruelty harm you? And those who romanticize everything and anything about you. Crazy lovers like me. Like crazy people in love are known to do, I defend your name, cry when I hear about your latest fall.

Is it addiction my love? Are you addicted to self-harm? Is that why you allow those who care about you to be harmed and their blood to be shed? Those who want to plant good seeds with good deeds, as they protect and praise you. Those who want to walk by your beaches watch your sunset, invite others to watch your sunrise.

But unlike others my darling they wouldn’t try to abuse you or your treasures.

Perhaps all this self-harm is due to all the times you were harmed?.

Perhaps I am suffering from a classic trauma-bonding. My first memories of you however traumatic I find healing by connecting with you, my root.

Then here we go again. The news about your latest is another blast other lives lost on your soil.

I turn off the news and listen to something else. It is what loving you does to me. I defend you, make excuses for you and you spit on my face.

Another blast more beautiful souls lost in pain. What did they do? They only loved you and came to help you up on your feet. And you can’t separate your lovers from your haters. And in the mix, the goodwill dies.

I have learned to detach from emotions and be numb for a while until I allow myself to be soft again and listen to K’naan. Then I feel sorry for you and blame haters and selfish mankind for their heinous actions. Selling you short, cheap, and bit by bit. It’s as if they feed on your destruction.

But the blast of the latest hit harder…

Amongst your lovers, there was Hodan. She left safe haven to your paradise she called you Heaven on earth. She vowed to fight for your name, took the brush, and repainted your name beautifully. For years and years, the world knew of your robbers, of your sea pirates but unlike Jack Sparrow, they were not celebrated by the masses.

The world knew of your hunger and draught. My sister Hodan, took the brush from the world and painted you blue, and pink. The colors of love. She had found love and together hand in hand they painted you glorious, my love all that which you are. Others came from far and near all in the name of love, they gathered to build you up.

But you can’t separate your lovers from your haters. And in the mix, the goodwill died.

Right now I wish I never knew you… Wish the physical distance between us could transform my heart to detach from your roots. Or my blood to be drained and changed but my veins are shaped with your name. See there is no escaping you.

It is hard to love you yet I love you hard. For when I love you I love me too.

I close my eyes to the blasts and my ears to trash talks about you. I open my mouth to pray for peace. Peace for you my love. Peace for us.

Peace

For

The World.

Peace for my beloved,

Peace for Somalia.

Aar manta – Somalia Ha noolaato on repeat.

I left home, but home never left my heart – Aar Maanta