Right Before Our Eyes: A Poem on the 2023 Israel–Hamas War

I tried to take a stance. I tried to feel a pull towards a side.

I read up on the history of the Israel-Hamas conflict and tried to focus on the facts. 

But the truth is the words on CNN and Instagram blurred into an image of a boy under the rubble. 

This poem is for him.

I saw a mother crying out in search of her son.

This poem is for her.

I saw a child's partially filled diary face down. A handwritten love letter that would never be sent. 

An unopened birthday gift. A dead cell phone. An abandoned bike. 

I saw a girl’s torn dress that would never be worn again. A broken pacifier marked by a baby's teeth was alone on an ash-covered sidewalk.

A black sky shielding the sun from seeing the slaughter, knowing fully well that the light would weep at the sight of it.

We can take sides. We can share our beliefs. We can let the fumes of our anger add to the smoke that pollutes the air.

We have the right to our opinions and feelings. 

But we do not have the right to merely bring a group of families down to a single statistic.

One’s loss can never be summarized by a number. 

Stolen heartbeats can not be silenced by a storm of clickbait headlines.

I am mortified at how easy it has become for me to glance past a footage clip.

I am scared that I will wake up one morning and not blink when Google spits out the digest on the war as I get dressed for the day.

I firmly believe it is our duty to know what is happening in our global village.

We can read the updates, scroll through the news, and comment when we have something to say. 

We can do all this and still remember to bring our focus back to the faces of those who have been and are being taken away right before our eyes.