
“I am an Arab woman of colour and we come in all shades of anger.”
— Rafeef Ziyadeh
Thank you, 2024, for making me homesick in my own land, within myself. Thank you for forcing me to question everything, everything inside me, around me, even my existence in this universe. I wouldn’t call you the worst, because I have no idea what’s coming next. I didn’t read a hundred books, nor did I travel the world. I didn’t achieve any goals. I never even set any — not even surviving you. After all, who knew if I’d survive you? Or if I’d simply become history, like you. Every memory of you is engraved in my soul. Every scene burned into my mind. I refuse to forget you, and I won’t. You are my Year One — the first stone laid beneath all that’s yet to come.
I demand justice for you. I demand justice for myself. I demand justice for every moment of helplessness. I demand justice for my 77-year-old disabled Sitto Rahma, born in the shadow of Al-Nakba, the wrinkles of her hand drawing the map of exile and fig trees. And now in her twilight, her green eyes weep another Nakba. Her name is Rahma, but where is the mercy?
I demand justice for my youngest sister who begs for a lollipop, imagining herself licking a rainbow. Such a simple request from a 6-year-old girl, that I cannot satisfy. My baby sister, who presses her tiny fingers to her ears to block out the inhumane manmade thunder. I demand justice for all the thunders that turned her warm home, and shiny kindergarten, into a scorched biscuit. I demand justice for her encyclopedic knowledge of artillery shells — the F-16’s roar, the Apache’s relentless hum, the quadcopter’s eerie drone slicing the sky. Each sound, a language her ears had to memorize, better than any seasoned war veteran.
I demand justice for the laughter I’ve had to force from myself. I demand justice for the illusion I’ve had to live in because reality is uninhabitable. I demand justice for the freezing tent, for my home, my library, my cozy wooden couch. I demand justice for all the unread books, the empty pages, and the read ones with annotations I let none see. I wonder if a soldier’s hand touched them, raped them with a cursory glance. He could never know how sacred my books are. How loyal they’ve been, how deeply they’ve lived in me.
I demand justice for my father, the father of his students, who paved our path to the future yet found no road to safety. I demand justice for evacuation orders at dawn. Thankfully they threw a warning missile, shattering the front of the building — but killing our neighbors. Slaughtering our people to evacuate us. Saving our bodies by torturing our souls.
I demand justice for my mother, who once made feasts of maftool and found nothing to cook. I demand justice for the endless months of sleeplessness, pulling all-nighters to the symphony of drones digging hard in my head, the bitter taste of anxiety clinging to the inside of my mouth.
I demand justice for my wasted youth. No, I’m not 19 or 20, I am 80. For I lost myself. Shades of rage are what’s coming.
Because you, 2024, may leave, but I will not forget.