The sea near Al Baqa Café, Gaza City, 2016. Photo: Alaa Mahdi Kudaih 

Lost
The sky of Gaza above me
heavy and silent.
The seashore beneath me
blue waves unreachable.
Trapped between, in a narrow space,
with no wings to carry me home,
no depths to pull me into safety.

Stuck
In the middle of everything—
myself, people, life, the past stolen
from Jabalia Camp’s narrow streets.
Our present teeters on piles of rubble,
Our past sinks among those piles,
Our future shimmers beyond walls
I cannot cross.

Aimless
No road to my father’s olive trees,
no strength for walking
through endless checkpoints,
in a land too small for its pain.

Scarred
I never chose
a fate etched in the stones of Al-Shati
or a history written in bullets
bombs and blockades.
I carry that story like a scar
from battles I did not fight.

Disappeared
Not by mistake, nor by choice,
but by hands that tore the land
from beneath my feet.
And when I reach their borders,
they strip me even of my name—
not Palestinian, not a woman,
not a person.