The bag. Photo: Fatena Abu Mostafa

I. What should I carry?

What should I carry
in the bag of exile?
This question gnawed at my mind,
stung my sleepless eyes
as I stared at the fraying cloth—
a two-zippered bag
with one small front pocket,
empty like my chest.
The sirens shrieked again,
strapping fire to the streets,
roaring like lions let loose—
and we, the tame animals,
had no claws,
no shelter,
no say.
Crowds flooded the roads
like ants, like scattered flocks.
And I—
I faced my bag
and the fragments of my life
scattered across the cold-tiled floor:
Elizabethan texts,
Victorian tales,
poetry and prose books—
the last breath
of my university days.
A few clothes.
Some makeup
I once believed could mask
the black lines etched into my face—
fear hollowing my gaze,
thoughts binding my skull
like barbed wire
wrapped around an olive grove.
In one trembling corner of my heart,
hope whispered:
“Leave the bag. Stay. Ignore the sky.”
But fear roared louder,
pressing its boot
against my tongue.
I sobbed,
swallowed rain
falling from the roof of my eyes
to the doorstep of my chin.
But the face remained soaked—
and does a waterfall
ever dry?
So again I asked:
What fits in this cursed bag?
My bed? My pillow?
My winter coat or summer sandals?
My jasmine tree?
The olive tree rooted outside our door?
The rooftop my dove once circled?
The window where light used to spill in?
But my dove has wings.
She can flee.
Mine are broken.
And the window—
how does one carry a window?
Where do I place my mind,
my breath,
my name?
All that cannot fit
into this weary fabric,
torn by too many nights of flight.
Should I take my journal,
its pages filled with dreams now silenced?
Or should I take the photo of me as a child—
to gaze at when I feel I’ve aged too fast,
to remind myself
of who I was
before this war
reshaped my face,
and carved years
into my twenty-something eyes?
I still say it, again and again:
One bag will never be enough.
I saw I wasn’t alone
in this cruel ritual—
I saw my mother’s hands tremble
as she prepared her own bag.
My sisters, my brothers,
each with a bag half-empty,
half-sacrificed.
Each with eyes
half-drowned in things
they could not carry.
I felt the weight in my mother’s silence,
how impossible it is
to fit a lifetime
into zippers and fabric.
How could a house
ever be folded
into a bag?
And still I beg myself:
One bag will never be enough.

Items in the bag. Photo: Fatena Abu Mostafa

II. One bag is never enough

I grabbed my books,
my verses,
my trembling pages—
and the bag,
too frail to hold a history,
slung on a shoulder
too fragile for departure.
I crawled forward,
a turtle without a shell,
leaving my future behind.
My feet carried me
into the haze of the unknown,
a leaf of olive
pressed into my palm.
I clutched it—
my only calm.
With me:
my pens, my words,
my memory—
they filled the space
my clothes could not.
Still, I whispered:
One bag will never be enough.
I saw my mother’s bag,
my sisters’,
my brothers’—
the frugality in their fingers
as they folded
what little they could carry.
I watched my mother hesitate
at the threshold of a home
too large for any bag,
too sacred to abandon.
And again I begged myself:
One bag will never be enough.

The home left behind. Photo: Fatena Abu Mostafa

III. The first night of exile

I sat on the pavement.
My bag became my blanket.
My notebook and pen—
my only weapons.
Above, the moon
hung faint behind smoke.
I mourned the wall
stitched with childhood photos,
the drawer that locked away
a life
war would not return.
I tried to recall
a prayer once given to me,
to feel held,
to feel safe—
but all I could whisper was:
“If only I had taken that…
If only I had…”
Then silence—
shattered by the sight
of limbs scattered
on the “safe” street
the army led us to
after forcing us from
the “danger zone.”
This time,
I did not weep for the bag
nor the lost books—
but for what we had become:
the displaced,
the dragged,
the nameless witnesses.
The land was ours,
but exile denied us its embrace
to bury our pain.

The destroyed home. Photo provided by Fatena Abu Mostafa

IV. Finale — a home walking

So now I wait.
What else can I do?
I wait for a bag
big enough to carry
our broken roof,
our jasmine tree,
our unspoken songs.
I wait for a place
wide enough for my window,
for my mother’s prayer,
for the voice of my dove
that still echoes
from a rooftop
I may never see again.
I carried the memories
in the chambers of my mind and heart.
I captured what surrounded me—
and what I could not fit
into the bag that held almost nothing—
onto my phone,
that small glowing rectangle
that could not carry jasmine or dust
but held a ghost of them.
I thought, if I recorded long enough,
maybe they wouldn’t leave me.
If I stared into the screen long enough,
perhaps they’d believe
they were still home.
Or maybe—
maybe I must carry it all
inside my ribs.
Turn my body
into the house,
my breath into the curtains,
my heart into the soil.
So that no matter
where I’m dragged,
I remain—
a home walking.