Whenever I Am Asked My Name

Many days and long nights pass in a space where my open eyes see nothing but loneliness and torment. I am met only by the waves of orphanhood, salty waves that burn my wounded eyes and fan the flames of grief in my heart.

Every voice I hear, I imagine to be yours; every face, I believe to be your radiant image. Your memory clings to my tongue—whenever I am asked my name, I recite yours. Wasn't the very essence of my speech to utter your names? To tell stories, to connect with you, and to know myself? How, then, did I become mute? My words wither before they reach my throat.

I am a fugitive from voices and places, while the howling winds of violence destroy the fields of our language, turning the words that were ours into a cry trapped in my jugular vein.

What shall I call this body, transformed by the crime that befell you? It stands now from the blood of your pure bodies, no longer from its original clay.

What fate awaited me, and what fate remains for me, the remnant of my family, the living blood of the massacre, slapping the dust of life.

Omar Moussa is a Palestinian journalist and poet from Gaza, and member of the Gaza Poets Society.

Artwork by Kantoon Knaap.