The night after they unearthed a mass grave In Tantura

I couldn’t sleep. 

I’m visited by ghosts demanding justice. 

Unearthed too little 

Too late,

Unrecognized by their own doers.

How can I sleep when I have guests?

Dates, nuts and tea 

What my grandmother taught me 

about hospitality

when I lived in the village. 

But that is not enough:

Makeshift beds and mattresses out of blankets-

they’re here to stay.

Until they’ve found their peace

Until their names are written

Until they’re remembered 

And their murderers names declared

So loud as the mouazen screams during the Friday prayer.

How can I sleep?

My pain too deep,

Anxiety and urgency to fulfill their need:

Till dawn I’m hunched over

Writing down many letters in different tongues

Pleading for truth,

Out of love for truth, 

Out of love for justice,

But also out of tiredness: 

My living room shrunk and I can’t find a space to be

My elbows tight, my mind distraught

Why can’t I sleep? Some call it insomnia,

I work at a sleeping lab believe me –

I know what’s wrong, it’s

Self-diagnosis based on history and anamnesis:

Severe injustice with mild symptoms of bad faith. 

and the remedy? recognition, liberation.

In the meantime, to assuage the pain,

I endure the night and rise with the sun,

holding endless ululations in my arms. 

** The Tantura village was displaced and razed to the ground by ISraeli forces in 1948 during the Nakba. This year, an israeli excavating team unearthed a mass grave there. https://www.lemkininstitute.com/single-post/there-s-a-mass-palestinian-grave-at-a-popular-israeli-beach-veterans-confess