70 years of the Nakba, Right of Return is Ours
70 years of the Nakba
Right of Return is Ours
They killed you.
How am I supposed to forgive that?
They put a bullet through his head
They put a bullet through my heart
How do they expect me to forgive that?
They accused him of a crime he did not commit
Mesh Mtzaker (I don’t remember)
Wallah mesh mtzaker (I swear I don’t remember)
He is just a kid, they’re all just kids
How do you expect me to react?
Nefse afham (I want to understand)
Wallah nefse bes afham (I swear I just want to understand)
They call me a terrorst
Yl3an dee5 kelmit erhabi (curse the word terrorist)
O meen el erhabi? (And who is the terrorist?)
They are the ones who have ripped my people to shreds
They have ripped his body open and left it to bleed
How do they expect me to trust them?
Thika2? (trust?)
Am I supposed to trust the people who have arrested my father
Who have beaten my father
Who have tortured my father
They have Dehumanized my father
How do they expect me to accept that?
1948 – 48
I see that number everywhere
It’s 9:48 A.M
48 seconds left
48 trucks, 48 colors, 48 emotions
48 different screams
48 shades of red
48 trees gone
48 cents
48 months
48 days
48 hours
48 minutes
48 seconds
It’s 9:48 P.M
48 – 1948
They arrested my father
They tortured him for 48 days
48 days
How long has it been?
1948
Mama ya Mama, make it stop
I tripped into barbed wire
And I saw 48 different shades of red
Tata ya Tata, make it stop
Allah yer7amha (May God bless her soul)
She left the world with the key to her home in her hands
فلسطين الحرة (Free Palestine)
She did not see a Free Palestine
My grandfather is older than the occupation
1948
He watched his family die that die
48 different shades of red
They say I can’t be trusted
I must be caged
Dehumanize me
How dare you try to silence me when my people’s narratives are written all over my arms
They flood into my blood, overflowing me, acting as though they were oxygen providing me with life
There is so. much. pain.
My people’s narratives are stabbing into me
48 tears
48 different screams
48 different shades of Red!
Your last words were inaudible
because I was not there to hear them
yl3an dee5 el 3’orba (curse the diaspora, the exile, the displacement)
Jrash wenak ya Jrash? (Jrash, where are you Jrash?)
Why can’t I see you?
My identity card is green and I cannot see you
I wonder who keeps you company
I wonder if these people know about my 48 shades of red
Because sometimes the only thing I hear is my people screaming
The only thing I see is my people’s shades of red
And I am choking on my people’s narratives
I forget where I am, and I have to remind myself that I am not crazy. I am not crazy. I am not crazy.
Refugee camps are cramped spaces with no air to breathe from
We are choking on our own narratives
Mesh methaker (I don’t remember)
Wallah mesh methaker (I swear I don’t remember)
How do you expect me to forget that?
They put a bullet through his head
Which put a bullet through my heart
They killed you.
Do not expect me to forgive that.
Part 2
My parents are refugees
My parents are children of refugees
I am the daughter of refugees
We will forever be children of Palestinian refugees
Forever
Children
Palestinian
Refugees
These are words that break me
Words that suffocate me
Refugee: for a normal person, it is a term used to label people who are displaced
For me, it is a word that traps me
Its hands are wrapping around my neck – choking me
Refugee camps are cramped spaces with no air to breathe from
We are Palestinian Refugees and we are being choked by our own people’s narratives
Every time my Biology professor says the word, ‘checkpoint’, I feel a lump in my throat and I am unable to breathe
Every time my Chemistry professor says the word, ‘uranium’, I feel my entire body shake and then I shut down completely
Every time my Political Science professor says the word, ‘citizenship’, I cannot help but stutter because my kind of citizenship does not hold words like freedom
Instead, my citizenship holds the necks of Palestinian Refugees
Instead of me owning my identity,
My haweya owns me (Palestinian identity card)
Every time I hold my haweya, (Palestinian Identity card)
I want to set my hands on fire
And I am crying because how dare I want to burn this identity that tells me I am a Palestinian
How dare I want to set myself on fire when my people are suffering
When my own parents are alive and suffering!
You are all flying, and I am burning, sinking, crying
You grew up with butterflies in your stomach
While I grew up with hot coals in mine
Your butterflies were gentle to you, tickled you, loved you
While these hot coals were hurting me, eating me, destroying me
I was throwing up fire as I was calling for you
How dare you watch me as I am calling for you to help my people
I am screaming; they are beating me, they are burning me
Please, do not watch me
Do not close your ears
Hear me!
Do not try to solve me
Do not make me your “two-state solution”!
Do not talk to me about Peace
Fuck you and your bullshit solutions
You are trying to convince me that you are keeping my people’s best interest in mind,
Yet you are the ones who have been force feeding me and my people hot coals that create this fire that eats us from our insides out
You are trying to show me that you care about my people’s displacement
Yet instead you are screaming words that sit as lumps in my throat.
Checkpoint, Uranium, Citizenship, katalu (they killed him), jesh (military), a7mar (red), aswad (black), hope, occupation, alleged, mo5ayem (refugee camp), oppression, jebha, apartheid, conflict, radical, kanabel (bombs), terrorist, ghettos, gas, rooftops, yahood, 3asafeer (birds), i7dud (borders, limitations), olive, german shepards, religion, airplanes, soldiers, baniadam (human being), time, Allah, helicopters, lage2a (refugee), katalu (they killed him), jesh (military), a5thar (green), abyad (white), shaheed (martyr),
mama, he’s dead!
Israel
These words sit as lumps in my throat that soon turn into hot coals that burn in my stomach
Do not call me the terrorist, when you are the ones who have displaced me!
Don’t you dare ignore my narrative
Don’t try to erase my existence
Don’t ever think you can speak for me
How foolish of I to want to set myself on fire and erase another Palestinian’s existence from this world
Isme (my name is) Rania Yousef Mahmoud 3atteyah Salem Ramadan
And this is my narrative
My roots come from a land called Jrash,
which was ethnically cleansed in 1948
My people murdered
And we were displaced
Now my people live in Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem
A camp that gets hit so frequently by Israeli soldiers, young children know the difference between fireworks, gunshots, and bombs dropping
The word refugee suffocates me, but I feel free because my people hold this hope inside them that reminds me of my dearest Palestine and of her well deserved freedom
I am surrounded by refugees that allow me to think of the one day Palestinians won’t feel heavy lumps in their throats – from lumps like occupation, oppression, and apartheid
We are Palestinian Refugees
and we don’t dream of Freedom
No, we are the ones who know it will happen
We are Palestinian Refugees
We are the people who fight to free Palestine as we hold our keys in our hands
One day, we will swallow these lumps in our throats
And to our homes we will return
And refugees we will be no more
Jrasheya, Lage2a, Idheshiya, o Falestinia
(A person from Jrash, a Refugee, A person from Dheisheh, and a Palestinian)
Ana isme Rania Yousef Mahmoud 3atteyah Salem Ramadan
And you can never erase me.
