Fady Joudah

Well, this is a long poem.

I'm going to stand to read it.

Dedication.

To those...

whose memory, imagination, and bodies are my memory, imagination, and body.

From the collective to the one under the same assault, no matter our location on earth, our bodies have different ways of knowing, but our bodies know.

To the martyrs who witness from above and the living who witness on the ground,

To those who will be killed on the last day of the war.

To those who will be killed on the first day after the war ends.

To those who succumb in the humanitarian window of horror an hour before the pause, a minute after.

To those who die of a broken heart during and after the war.

To those who gather their families to die together so that no survivor suffers survival alone.

To those who scatter their families so that they're not all wiped out from the civil record.

To the babies whose death certificates mark their brief presence on earth before their birth certificates could be issued.

They were not given names.

To the elderly who endured 48 and lived to see their descendants erased.

To the young born under the sign of siege and are the only members of their families left.

Will you stand up and form a small nation?

To those who died because dialysis was no longer possible.

No water, electricity, and fuel.