If I believed in Reincarnation …

What a great way to escape this world.

I am a hawk soaring high above, riding an airwave, spreading my wings wide and proud.

I am a butterfly sampling sweet nectar, drawing attention, living surrounded by beauty and color.

I am an earthworm digging beneath the surface, turning the soil, supporting life where there is no room for the sun’s bold rays.

I am an energetic rabbit, an angry lioness, an innocent lamb, an elegant giraffe, a boring cow, a careless flounder, a shy snail, a reckless deer . . .

Could I be a plant instead? I could be an olive tree, solid and giving for many, many years. Better yet, an orange tree, fragrant and alluring. Or a grape vine snaking my way to the east, inviting loved ones to hide from curious eyes.

I am any living thing that cannot think, cannot fear, cannot hope and cannot dare to dream. Anything but this useless human, boxed in by religion, ideals, politics, history, and other humans who wish me to be someone else.

I think I am a spider. I keep weaving my web, my transparent security, and watch it get ripped apart by a careless world time after time.

Am I a poisonous tarantula? I certainly can be. 

Keep pushing, cruel world, and we shall find out.


Lilas Taha is a novelist, winner of the 2017 International Book Awards  and is the author of Shadows of Damascus and Bitter Almonds.