Tell me What does it Feel like?

Photo by Hennie Stander on Unsplash

Tell me, what does it feel like,

to shout your name into a sky

so crowded with noise

that your grief falls back to earth unheard?

Tell me what it feels like

when the world asks for your story,

then turns away

before you can finish the first sentence.

What does it feel like

to count the living at dawn

and the missing by night,

to memorize the sound of fear

better than the sound of laughter?

Tell me, my friend,

what does it feel like

when your tears are questioned,

when your wounds are debated,

when your dead become statistics

instead of names?

What does it feel like

to be dying in plain sight,

yet still be called a threat,

to carry the weight of accusations

while carrying the bodies of those you love?

What does it feel like

when attacks reach the places

that should shelter life —

the rooms of mothers,

the beds of children,

the halls of hospitals —

and still your cries struggle

to cross the distance between hearts?

Tell me what it feels like

when power writes the headlines,

when sorrow is measured unevenly,

when one side is mourned immediately

and the other must first prove its humanity.

Do you grow tired

of explaining that you bleed,

that you dream,

that you love,

that you are more than the labels

placed upon you by strangers?

Tell me what it feels like,

because I fear the silence most —

the silence that settles

after every plea,

the silence that answers

a thousand voices with none.

And yet,

beneath the dust,

beneath the mourning,

beneath the unbearable weight of loss,

you still speak,

still remember,

and hold on to tomorrow

with wounded hands.

So tell me what it feels like —

not because I can ever fully know,

but because your story

deserves to be heard

before it becomes another echo

lost in the noise of the world.

Photo by Mohammed Ibrahim on Unsplash

Palestine #Peace