When I was little, in the summer time my favorite thing to do was play with the garden hose. Put my thumb right before the water came out and make it splash everywhere. Make water rainbows and run under them, or simply just watch the water run while I adjust the pressure. I wish I could just use my garden hose now, put my thumb on the top and leave a little gap so that when the water wants to break free, it comes out stronger, but with gentle force washes everything I point it towards. I want the Middle-east back. I want to wash away the blood, the oil, the pain, the war. I just want to see date trees, and food. The tabul, the warmness, the dances, the music, the birth of history. The cradle of civilization. 


The last time I sang this song, I was in Iraq for the first time in 12 years. The power had just gone out, as me and my cousin were cooking, and we were singing this song to each other at dawn and laughing. The war has made gypsies out of all of us, but I just want to go home. 

The stranger passed by and gave me a message

My lover had written with his tears

I opened the message whose letters are lost

And days passed, years made us strangers

While winter had erased the letters of the message

I loved you in the summer, I loved you in the winter

I waited for you in the summer, I waited for you in the winter

Your eyes are summer, My eyes are winter

My love full is beyond summer and beyond winter

Is beyond summer and beyond winter.