Artist: Osama Hussain, Flyers for Falastin

I wake, drenched in cold sweat.
My heartbeat rapid,
my breathing irregular.
I cannot make sense of my surroundings.
I glance at the clock.

It’s past midnight.

It is all too familiar.

I wait for my vision to blur,
I wait for the feeling in my limbs to dim.

Inside me,
a whirlpool
that forces me to silence.
And I ready myself for the image to resurface.

I lie here,
eyes wide shut.

And It’s that day
all over again.

*****

It is suffocating outside.

Everyone around me feels the same way.
We’ve been walking for quite a while now.
I lose track of time.

My mother’s back,
my sister’s shoulder bumping into mine,
are the only things that ground me.

I fall into a rhythm.
I tune out the cries,
the distant drumming of the war planes,
the wretched grinding of metal
clanking inside my body with every tank.
Or at least, I try.

Deep breaths.
I steady myself.
I attempt to look around me,
careful not to move too much.
We were commanded to keep quiet,
as quiet as the dead.

Keep moving forward
in silence.
Don’t act out.
Don’t look back.

Don’t fall behind.

I repeat the soldiers’ words
over and over.

I fear studying my surroundings.
I feel it in my bones — impending doom.
So I choose to look down instead.

*****

My organs twist at the sight of their kin,
painting the disfigured street scarlet.
My stomach turns;
I forget how to breathe.
They tell us to halt.
Relief tries to wash over me;
I do not let it.

I close my eyes.
For a second,
a lifetime passes by me.
Then I open them again.

My heart forgets its rhythm,
my blood forgets my tensed limbs.
I straighten my back, wide eyed, at the sight of you.
Ash and charcoal.
A broken car.
A burnt corpse:
You.

*****

I do not know who you are,
Neither do you know me.
We are worlds apart,
though only inches stand between us.
Questions swarm,
a quartet of voices,
and they all belong to me.
Why do you not seem dead?
Why do I catch myself crying for you?
The air — it suffocates.
In front of me you lie, and I mourn.
I mourn the person you were,
and I try to perceive you.
I am rendered silent.
My mouth has not spoken a word in hours,
and still, you manage to render my brain silent.
The murderer to my left
does not give out more orders.
And so here I am.
And here you are.

*****

I am left to wonder,
and I do:

What led you here?
What could it have been that overshadowed the value
of just one breath more?
You lie calm and quiet.

Did you like your morning coffee with sugar?
Or perhaps you preferred tea?

Did exhaustion ever reach your eyes?
Or were you the type to wake up to the call of the mosque?
Did you bid the birds good morning?
Or were you too tired to greet those starting their day
because you were ending yours?

Did the smell of bakeries wrapping the morning air
bring you comfort, as it did me?

I, for one, liked my water warm.
Its heat, a welcoming embrace.
Soft, when the world around us was nothing of the sort.

Perhaps you agree?

Or did you find your peace
in the sting of the cold,
in the clarity
of the truth of our reality?

And was contentment, my dear companion,
a soft constant
forever found,
accompanying you?
Or was it rigid,
unforgiving,
asking of you to forge it
and go about your day?

What crossed your mind last,
before they stole the light,
the light I pray was there
in your eyes,
those I cannot see.

My mind tells me
that you are my companion.
I decide here and now
that I shall carry you with me.
To me,
you are not a vulgar scene,
you are not the remnants of an atrocity.
You are a part of who I am to become.

To me, you are alive.
Your presence,
it burns through me.
You are my companion
on what could be my last journey.
I choke on words I cannot utter,
and I am calm.

*****

It’s been months, I think.
I allow myself to revisit your memory again.
I stumble out of bed,
and I smile.
I welcome you like an old friend
whenever you choose to visit me, companion.
And I write to you,
with my inexplicable sentiment,
my incoherent words,
and my most sincere regards,
my companion.
A tribute to you,
to all your memories,
to the love that coursed through your veins,
to the sorrows that dimmed your days,
and to the peace I pray you have found.

A tribute, an ode,
a letter,
to you.