The cell door opens, but no light comes through,
just a guard's fist and a dog's snapping jaw.
Thirty-three years of this, though changing too,
the blocks where guards once kept a fragile law.
They took the books, the mirrors, the hotplate,
removed our blankets for a single sheet.
Toothbrushes replaced with ones short and straight,
walking our laps without shoes on our feet.
Still touching hope when the radio plays
Abeer Nehme for three minutes a day.
Then I feel human, despite the malaise,
as Gaza burns a hundred miles away.
They ask,
"Why don't you just die?"
The guards sneer.
I'm still here.
I'm still here.
I'm still here.
Inspired by the titular article by Nasser Abu Srour at Equator magazine about life as a Palestinian inside Israeli prisons.
“I have decided to write because things do not find existence outside the borders of language, not even genocide. I must write about the slaughter in Gaza; about its famished men, women and children; about its drowned sea and about its ability to rise again; about the world’s indifference to what has happened there and what is still happening there; about how the major powers barely even acknowledge this crime. I must write about Palestinian prisoners, because a war is still being waged against them; the Israeli prison authorities have not yet declared a ‘ceasefire’.”
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
1994ever 