Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

by Mosab Abu Toha

The key has rusted but still exists somewhere, longing for the old wooden door.

In Gaza you don’t know what you’re guilty of.

I speak Arabic and English, but I don’t know in what language my fate is written.

In Gaza, when the electricity is cut off, we turn on the lights, even in broad daylight. That way, we know when the power’s back.

Dan aku baru tahu dari ustadz Muhammad Husein Gaza: listrik dijatah 4 jam SEHARI. Kalo lagi beruntung tuh 8 jam 🥲

I weave my poems with my veins. I want to build a poem like a solid home, but hopefully not with my bones.

Al-Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem. I have never been to al-Quds. It’s around 60 miles from Gaza. People who live 5,000 miles away can move there, while I cannot even visit.

The curtain, heavy with fear, does not rise.

Seseorang bilang: orang-orang di Gaza gak punya PTSD. Nggak akan pernah jadi PTSD karena ketakutan itu, kejadian-kejadian traumatis itu terus berdatangan silih berganti. And this is what that fear is. The curtain. Dia nggak mau diangkat karena saking beratnya. Seperti kata Mosab, "bahkan alam pun membuat kami bingung." Mereka gak bisa membedakan awan dengan roket / bom —Searching For a New Exit.

my nonexistent state.

Pedih banget, berapa kali orang Palestina bilang gini? 😭 —Searching For a New Exit

In Gaza, some of us cannot completely die. Every time a bomb falls, every time shrapnel hits our graves, every time the rubble piles up on our heads, we are awakened from our temporary death.

Their ears hurt when they hear sirens, but we are made deaf by explosions.

—Us And Them

Their muscles stiffen with fear on their way to the shelters, while ours are pierced by boiling shrapnel.

—Us And Them

The houses were not Hamas. The kids were not Hamas. Their clothes and toys were not Hamas. The neighborhood was not Hamas. The air was not Hamas. Our ears were not Hamas. Our eyes were not Hamas. The one who ordered the killing, the one who pressed the button thought only of Hamas.

I never exercised my childhood. I think it’s there waiting for me—till when? Maybe until I go back to Jaffa and become a child again.

what they have lived through will not leave them, so it will all come back to them in their nightmares.

If they can’t write, or deal with their nightmares by reading, by putting them on paper, or somehow sharing their feelings with other people, this deepens the wounds.

IKR

When you get four hours of electricity, and in winter, usually just two hours, what do you do with those two hours?

TWO FREAKING HOURS?

This is a prolonged state of exile and estrangement and expulsion and ethnic cleansing. Our grandparents were driven from their homes and their cities, and any trace of them has been erased and replaced by something else, which is now called Israel.

The more the Israelis attack us, the more they are trying to erase the older memories.

No matter where I am—in Gaza, in Palestine, if I could even get there, or in the United States—I remain stateless.