City of Spectators, 2023. Artist: Dala Nobani

A new year,
they say.

But here—
it’s an alarm.
Not hope.
Not renewal.
An alarm
ringing straight
into the wound.

While they count their children
around warm tables,
we count those
who didn’t make it
to this new year.

While they gather,
we scatter.

From home
to tent.
From tent
to street.
From street
to a memory
that has no ceiling.

They call it winter warmth.
We call it survival.

Warmth for us
is a body pressed
against another body,
trying not to disappear.

Rain on their windows
is pleasant.
Soft.
Romantic.

Rain on us
is evidence.

Every drop—
a family in Gaza,
soaked
shaking

still there.

What new year
is this?

Not an ending.
No beginning.

A year that keeps going
like a bruise
that refuses to fade.

Outside of Gaza—
lights flirt with the night.
Songs wrap themselves
around laughter.
The world agrees, briefly,
to be kind.

In Gaza—
streets don’t celebrate.
They shelter.

Songs are no longer songs.
They’re breath
trying not to break.
They don’t reach playlists.
They don’t go viral.

Coats hang heavy—
not from fabric,
but from memory.

Bodies thin—
not only from hunger,
but from loss
stacked
upon loss.

Every year
we stand.

Not because we are brave—
but because collapse
is never an option.

Every year
we rise.

Even trees
are under rubble.
Roots choking on fear.
Branches holding
children,
mothers,
grandmothers,
names
with no graves.

What new year
drags us back
before erasure?

Before rubble?

When life
was something
ordinary?

When they say
Happy New Year,
we hear a sting in the words,
we feel cold— in the chest.
In the head.
In our bones.

This is not a celebration.