"قبل أن تطحن الحرب قلبي"

Seventy five years

Gnawed upon by hyenas

Of green and blue and red

And the colour of our nations within us

Seventy five years 

Since the dawning of Gaza’s only sigh

The sights like a river rushing into the mouths of her children

With the missiles of an f16

And so the nation poured from it drop after drop

Since the child in us ceased to question

And, panting, began to stretch out his fingers and dry throats

Beyond his UNRWA card

And the queues for relief organizations

Seventy five years

Since the second crucifiction of Christ

And he was thrown under the the blazing sun

They labeled him a refugee

And gave him a tent

Then they labeled him, numbered him, robbed him, dismembered him, and cast him out into a distant eternity

Here

In the graveyard of prolonged history

Where alleys and squares are preserved

And the streets and shops and signs

Our names and our shapes

And the color of misery on our melted features

Which we drag as we march

And the scent of displacement that emmanates from the narrow pockets of camps

We dispense death

A wish for our children

Wrapped in candy boxes

From when the child within us

Learns to spell a question about destiny

Before sleep

Destiny takes a stroll through our minds

Climbs the tents rear

Lights a cigarette of gunpowder

And blows into our faces

Tales of homeland and warm shelters

So the tent laughs

And grips the worlds bitter cold

And stuffs it into our bodies

And before erradication groans of orphanhood

And the shells disperse, their shrapnel

In the air like swarms of ravenous gloom

And so the scars of my face fill with corpses

I used to have eyes

And a home and a heater

A mother and friends

Gardens and footpaths

Gnawed upon by hyenas