It's the least I can do
I let myself be
Bombarded with images
Bombarded with feelings;
Tears coupled with Rage
All marked by helplessness
I find myself here again
weeks later
Still watching ...
Still Bombarded with the
Stale, polaroid aftertaste of Death
Charred bodies and the severed feet of children
Still drowning in bitter waves of Rage
All while somewhere
on a tiny strip of land
they die.
Bombarded.
Bombarded,
with rockets, missiles, and fire
Sulphur and gas
raining down on them
from orange, apocalyptic skies...
Bombarded with
flying, white arrows of apathy
Targeted pellets of PR venom
Bombarded
and Classified:
'Terrorist.'
'Towel Head.'
'Human Animal' dying.
Not even worthy of being killed.
Just dying...
There I go again
Using Their words
Because those are the only words I was given
to talk about
Bombardment.
Words,
fed to me in a language
made to kill me
Crafted to leave us all dead
Even before they kill us:
'Both Sides.'
'Humanitarian Pause.'
'Self Defense.'
'Conflict.'
Tomorrow will come
with the Sun
Just like it always does
Tomorrow I will go to work
I will order a burger and fries
Tomorrow I will make sure
I don't order McDonalds
That would be insensitive
And despite all these Bombardments
I still have enough feeling left
in me
to feel that.
Another Tomorrow
And I will teach a class
on how to make sense of a massacre
I will use words like:
'Decolonization.'
'Radical Empathy.'
'Resistance.'
'Apartheid.'
All words in Their language
Because me and mine
Don't belong to ours anymore
Not for this
Not for what They do to us
We never had time to make our own words
while we were Bombarded with Theirs
Tomorrow I will say that
History will remember Today
That I will remember
That we must remember
But my Tomorrow
will already be their Yesterday
And that is why
None of my words
will matter
in the face of Their word
'Bombardment.'
