Imagine you're the reason
why someone else is happy?
Feels incredible, right?
Feels so nice, huh?

Now, let's shift that scenario…
You’re the reason someone
is terribly traumatized.
You're the reason
someone is tormented, day and night,
by buzzing and explosions
that send them running, to hide.

You're the reason they
have no place safe,
no refuge.

You're the reason a husband,
a wife, a father, a mother,
a son, a daughter,
a soulmate
are gone.

You’re the reason many
have to abandon
their memories, their houses,
their lives.

You're the reason it's
a struggle for many to breathe,
including me.

You're the reason that yesterday,
I suffered
a powerful panic attack,
bringing back nightmares
about the first one.
Curious to know when that was?
It was the first war;
I was a 7-year-old kid.
The sky was full of buzzing drones,
and bombers with
such loud BANGS,
they made me shake for days.
Today, they don't.
Now, I am used to them;
they just interrupt me when
I try to study, or sleep,
or escape into a book,
or… or…or.

You, yeah, you.
You are an Israeli
reading my lines.
Do you feel any sympathy?
Even a little empathy?
Or are you thinking
I am exaggerating?

Maybe you don't know
what your government is doing
against people like me.
Maybe, you're wondering
who I am, the way I'm wondering
who you are.
Maybe you're saddened by it all.
Maybe you're anti-injustice,
anti-cruelty,
anti-colonialist:
Humane.

Do you know who you are?