Rifqa

by Mohammed El-Kurd

liberation is not a media strategy. It is a matter of life and death.

Solidarity is a feeling and a doing. It is a series of choices we make with one another. It can only be felt. It cannot be contrived or manipulated. Solidarity is not just about our shared pain or struggle but also, most importantly, about our shared joy, visions, and dreams. It is an energetic force and a resounding love.

Poetry sees us for who we truly are, and what is in that reflection must be faced. Poetry is a home for the dispossessed; it is our belonging.

Birth lasts longer than death. In Palestine death is sudden, instant, constant, happens in between breaths.

Your father was a bullet away before a bullet took him, came home a martyr never a father. You were destined,

Your ambition is ammunition bullet-less.

In Jerusalem, every footstep is a grave.

Here, every footstep is a grave, every grandmother is a Jerusalem.

Invaderscame back once again, claimed the land withfists and fireexcusesbeliefs of the chosen and the promised as if God is a real-estate agent.