Poetry
Stay with me, Armenia
As a child, I stacked my toys,
pretending every lopsided mess was Ararat.
I’d clutch at the side of my mountaintop,
embracing every rock in full throttled hand-hugs —
so this was “Armenia.”
Armenia, Armenia,
you are changing, removed by regimes
that are not my own.
Foreign lands —
they pillage you, pull you,
from the Armenians,
for whom you have always made a home.
The toy towers keep crumbling.
What stands between us?
Not me, not you,
but centuries of annihilation,
diasporas moved.
Armenia —
I grasp you with fervor,
do not lose you with grace,
plead for your eternity.
Stay with me, always.
