We Dreamt

                                                                                                            
To Ali Osama and me
we dreamt
of making Palestine free.
From Yarmouk* we used to follow
the events in Gaza and imagine
we would die
as martyrs
on Palestinian soil.

We could never
have imagined that war
would knock on our doors.
We could never have imagined
that Osama would leave this world so soon
just a short distance from Damascus
with a shrapnel
stuck in his neck and
a camera in his hand.

And my dad tied me to the chair
and shouted:
Don’t you dare to go to his funeral!
Do you want to die too?
I screamed and kicked,
-saliva foaming in my mouth-
incapable of containing the red dragon
of my pain and the black numbness
invading me at the thought of not being able
to see his face
one last time.
And mother was crying in her room,
tearing her hair out and beating her womb:
Ya Allah, Ya Allah…
Don’t let him go!!
I’ve already lost two children
in this war,
I’ve even lost my own shadow,
what will I do if I lose my last son as well?

We dreamt
of making Palestine free.
We could never have imagined
that we would have to choose
between death, home, and here,
where darkness envelops you at 3 pm
and your nose freezes
and your chest is aching and empty,
a dismissed carton
at the corner of the street.