Letter 3: A beautiful prison
Letters From The Ground 3: A beautiful prison
its door, the moon.
We speak,
You speak,
Though silence may besiege us.
We raise our voices,
Not as victims, but as a force.
We speak,
Our survival lies within our words,
For we cannot afford silence,
And you cannot afford silence.
Here, the world —
A beautiful prison,
its door, the moon.
Our existence is not a privilege or a favor.
Our existence is born of painful solidarity,
A forceful act,
A force of resistance.
We stand together,
We confront together,
What seeks to erase us —
Our bodies, our minds,
Our thoughts, our souls.
Here, the world —
A beautiful prison,
its door, the moon.
Under brutality and war machineries,
Under surveillance and suppression,
Wherever we are,
We have arrived here.
And from here,
We will not leave this here.
Together.
We confront,
Not for the comfort of green spaces,
Not for some distant peace,
Not for lands we wish to conquer.
We resist,
For this land,
Our land,
Our planet.
Here, the world —
A beautiful prison,
its door, the moon.
Gaza is a mirror.
We look into it from the ends of the earth,
It looks back into us.
A victim within us sees itself in it,
An executioner within us sees himself in it.
We look
We witness
A story
Repeating itself,
Day after day.
An executioner
A victim
A victim
An executioner
Yesterday,
We watched a film —
The wandering dead, slaughtered in oblivion.
Perhaps it was Gaza:
Children burning, families disappearing,
A propaganda mirror.
In it, the boundaries blur
Between reality and illusion.
Lines dissolve,
Horizons vanish,
Horizons emerge.
Here, the world —
A beautiful prison,
its door, the moon.
Together, we confront
Lies and fabrications,
Promises upon promises
Fade,
Vanish.
Democracy, a pride —
Preachings and omens,
Fair of face,
Branding with tattoos:
Herds for life,
Herds for death.
Refusing to submit comes at a price —
It always has.
Here, the world —
A beautiful prison,
its door, the moon.
Tyrants weigh our lives,
In the balance of their interests,
In the balance of their comfort.
We, and you,
See a truth:
We are surplus, unnecessary —
That’s how we are seen.
Here, the world —
A beautiful prison,
its door, the moon.
Explosions ignite our dawn,
Corpses eclipse our day.
And still, we remain —
More than mere victims.
We celebrate life:
With art, with theater, with festivals, with words.
We confront death:
With art, with theater, with festivals, with words.
Here, the world —
A beautiful prison,
With the moon as its door.
We stare at its dark side.
We see, we worry.
We forget, we find peace.
We speak.
From the darkness,
Words emerge as poetry.
We speak.
From poetry,
Words emerge as prose for action.
When tyranny tears down our door, let us remember our right to resist. When we enjoy a moment’s safety, let us not forget our power to stand firm and take initiative against the tyranny lurking just beyond the door.
When we occupy a space for gathering, let us bring it to life — as a stage, a platform, a space for action. Let it be a place where our thoughts, fears, burdens, and contradictions emerge in every possible way; a spark to ignite reflection in our homelands, with our communities, within our spaces, and wherever our influence may reach.
Live. Stay. Act.
For living, staying, and acting are realms —
Cultural, political, and social spaces;
A land of life,
A land
of dreams and poetry.
Let us not turn the moon’s splendor
Into a prison.
The world is a prison,
the moon, its beautiful door.
