Oh, I’ve always loved chatting with my friends.
When I saw their messages asking me how I am, my eyes would sparkle with delight and yellow birds flew in my chest. But not anymore.

The sparkle now is a choke in my throat. Words stick inside it and fight. Should they tell the truth? Should they tell my people that I’m dying inside, my soul vanishing day by day? Or will they be considerate and tell a white lie?
Today I don’t have enough courage to protect my people, pretending I’m fine. So I prevent myself from telling them the truth and finish it with Alhamdulillah (Thank God).
Sometimes I don’t want to lie. I check my body so if I’m saying I’m well it will be partially true.
My eyes are weary, sore, and red:
they still see our countless evacuations,
and when they want to escape that dim vision,
they see another displaced family trudging to its new destination.
Behind them, the rubble of houses surrounds the scene entirely.
My heart?
Let’s not get into that part…
My ears say, “I escape from one voice, another haunts me,
from people mourning to pets’ hungry cries,
from airstrikes to the wings of quadcopters,
from drones to tanks to military clashes. They all haunt me.
“The painful buzzing that roars inside my head never seems to end.”
My nose is a battlefield of odors, assaulted by smoke and gunpowder and corpses and fire.
I want to tell my friends that at least my belly feels good, but alas I can’t. It hurts me every morning. It’s done with eating only canned food and flour for ten months and yearns for healthy food.
My limbs should be OK, but no. They aren’t. With the shriek of every Israeli airstrike, they tremble and flinch. My arms and legs shake with fear like a little child.
But I’m good, my friend.