How do we mourn?
Written in January 2024
How do we mourn the people of Gaza?
Who will clean the heaps of tempered glass,
the pile of broken homes, libraries and hospitals destroyed
that the missiles have left behind?
On this strip called Gaza, how do we mourn the loss?
But these sorrows are secondary to the heaps of shrouds
that remain to be buried!
Do we even have time to mourn
before the next missile hits
and dashes every dream to the ground, in bits?
My mind spins with questions with no answers in sight;
the loss of lives,
the loss of all that was built and now destroyed –
How can this ever be right?
Will someone have the strength to clean up the mess
where once people dreamed?
Where you could hear
the children’s laughter in the playground,
replaced now by shrieks of pain and cries
and the remains of plunder?
Do we have time to mourn the massive loss of this land?
In hope for Gaza, may sparks of spirit illuminate the soil
where people lie
covered in shrouds.
May each memory
create a ripple
in every heart
that bears the story of the people of Gaza.
May we stand for what is right
and fight what is wrong.
May we never forget
that we all belong
and share the space – that is Mother Earth.
I am Falasteen!
Written in late November 2023
Don’t turn your face:
I am injured and bleeding.
My face is slashed by shrapnel.
But you can stare.
You can look at me – I want you to look at me
as I look at others around me.
Look, there lies my friend Hafeez –
there is Fatima –
I see my brother’s hand…
Look, my father is trying to pick me up,
but his hands are trembling.
My mother is yelling to our neighbours
to stop the ambulance.
But Uncle Laziz and Farid are already in it,
and they might live – I hope they do!
I know I am dying, but they don’t know that…
or maybe they don’t wish to believe it’s happening.
I know they cannot hear me, but maybe you do…
You ask how old I am?
I am 12 years old.
I was with my parents, asleep in my bed,
when the soldiers knocked on our door
in the dark of night.
They poked at everything in our home
and rummaged through all our belongings.
Did we deserve this?
The cruelty in their faces –
they did not even listen to my father and mother,
to my uncles who came to them,
begging them to spare us.
Someone whispers:
Do you see the darkness yielding,
the tearing apart of people?
I wish to live these last few breaths
and dream the dreams I held close,
one last time,
to share them all with you.
Adults often ask themselves:
“What would I say to my 10-year-old self
or my 17-year-old self?”
Maybe the old man over there wonders
what he would say to his 55-year-old self today…
I hope you always say to each of those selves:
“You deserved to live in safety with no cruelty.
You deserved to have people fighting for you to exist,
so you could reflect on these years
as you grew older, stronger.”
Can I dream for a moment
of growing – of working – of playing
in the sands near the sea and of being free –
the kind of free that I felt these 12 years
with my parents in our home?
No, don’t turn away and think I am not here!
I am right here,
breathing my last… my last few breaths.
Look at me and hold me if you care…
Dust conceals the wrinkles on my parents’ foreheads
but I will always remember their smiles –
smiles when we picked the olives in our yards
before they bulldozed the trees on our street,
sharing food under their shade
and calling out to my friends
to join me at play.
You ask which street we live on.
It was called Al Masri, in Gaza,
but someone came and tore down the name.
I was taught that Gaza means “strength”
in an ancient Semitic language,
but now all our land has become unsafe –
even the “safe zones.”
“Its strength is waning but people will rise,”
my parents tell me – assure me –
and I want to believe them.
A journalist asked me what I felt
when I heard the planes over our heads
all day and night.
I wanted to tell her, this is nothing new.
I forget what it’s like not to hear them!
I see the fear in my parents’ faces and
don’t want them to be scared for me also.
So, I try to pretend – to hide my pain…
Don’t turn your head away now:
My eye is bleeding
but my mouth murmurs my mother’s name…
Please let her know that,
if you can hear me… you who can see me –
Please do open your eyes
and ask them why they have so much hate for us.
We did nothing.
We are children… we are children…
but they do not like our names – Al Masri, Gaza, Palestine.
Do you hear us children cry?
My aunt calls this a genocide.
May your eyes open
as I shut mine for a while… just for a little while…
Do not let them forget us all,
the 7,000 children and counting.
How many more like me by the time you hear this?
May you repeat my name, remember my name. I come from Palestine. I am Falasteen!
Editorial Note
This monologue was written on November 28, 2023, almost eight months before publication. In the intervening period, the reported death toll for Palestinian children killed by Israel’s bombs, forced displacements, imposed malnutrition and starvation, and illnesses resulting from its brutal siege and occupation of Gaza has risen to over 16,000, with thousands more still buried under rubble. (Sources: Al Jazeera, Gaza government media office, July 12, 2024; Global News, Save the Children International, June 24, 2024; for estimates of the overall death toll, see the British Scientific Journal The Lancet, July 5, 2024.)
