How many roadblocks on my way to you?

How many streets filled with fists?

Love is strong but not as strong as
U.S. sanctions and currency exchange rates,
power cuts and blackouts,
hunger,
and the ongoing garbage crisis.

Burning tires.

I see black smoke rising.

I put on a facemask and cross the street.
I remove the facemask.
Why are we afraid of death?

Unshaven and exhausted
with a dirty Lebanese flag on my shoulders
and an unlit cigarette drooping from my lips,
I reach Martyrs’ Square.

But there is no hope, is there?

Where can we go to keep our love alive?