When you live in Gaza, it is easy to think that being "outside" will automatically bring an easier life. But the life of an exile is frought as well. Arabs are not welcome in Turkey, and I don't feel like I belong. Anxiety is manifested, for me, in insomnia. 

Sleeping is a kind of dying.
Each night,
I stare into a black abyss
that leads to a sort of false death.
I close my eyes and blanket my sight
with another layer of darkness.
I welcome the blackness all around me,
as I wait silently for what comes next.
My heart slows down,
I feel it beating in my chest.
My breathing is shallow,
my brain is swimming.
I am floating
right out of my body
until consciousness slips away
and I am somewhere else,
a place even darker than my room,
colder than my bones.
This is my nightly journey,
my kind of death,
one I look forward to.