we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
Do I have the right to call you my land? They have taken you, added “less” and labeled me “stateless.”
Do I have the right to call you my land?
My love under the Zionist’s’ thumb:
All I want is to touch your hand.
I am running to you but they’ve weakened my knees.
My sweet dream, why have they dressed you like a nightmare?
They have taken you, added “less” and labeled me “stateless,"
a man with no land,
no name for me on the world’s map.
At a checkpoint, I am invisible to them.
They don’t understand.
They don’t hear my grandma’s stories.
They don’t know the olive trees, their smell on my granddad’s hands.
