Hit Enter to Search or X to close
.png)
Four seasons passed us by.
Yet, it’s still winter in that little corner of the world.
Winter in the hearts of those who wait.
Winter in the eyes of mothers, frozen in the stillness of their grief.
Everyone tries to remember the warmth of the sun, but it feels distant now, lost on their pale, weary skin.
Maybe it’s not winter at all.
Maybe it’s the tears and terror that have lingered for far too long, frozen, heavy, in the air they breathe.
And the children... their small faces, too young to understand what they’ve lost, too old to forget.
They wait in the cold, their laughter silenced by fear, their innocence stolen by the weight of a world that doesn’t see them.
No warmth, no hope... just the stillness of their hunger, and the echo of a life that should have been.
For the first time, the smell of blood is stronger than the sea in Gaza.
Stronger than Beit Hanoun’s flowers, stronger than Khan Younis's Orange, stronger than the cardamom coffee in a wedding night party in Rafah, stronger than the za'atar in my mom's kitchen.
No more house and no more cards.
No more ingredients.
No more health in my mom's body.
Nothing to flex.
Only broken bodies remain, crushed under the weight of racist starvation.
My little nephews and nieces, starving not just of food, but of the innocence they should be allowed to keep.
Maybe it’s not winter at all.
Maybe it’s the tears and terror that have lingered for far too long, frozen, heavy, in the air they breathe.
And the children... their small faces, too young to understand what they’ve lost, too old to forget.
They wait in the cold, their laughter silenced by fear, their innocence stolen by the weight of a world that doesn’t see them.
No warmth, no hope... just the stillness of their hunger, and the echo of a life that should have been.
For the first time, the smell of blood is stronger than the sea in Gaza.
Their suffering is the product of pedophilic cruelty, hatred spilling from every corner, devouring what they can never comprehend or justify.
Silence is as loud as it could ever get.
We were once more than this... but now, the air is thick with the scent of all we’ve lost, and the world, still deaf to our cries, remains untouched by the storm inside us.
The difference between us and them is simple: We plant life, while they take it away.
We cry, we mourn what humanity has become, and they laugh at the death of children, mock the loss of innocence. Not something a real victim would ever do.
There’s a lie their brainwashing machines broadcast about our queers being thrown off rooftops in Gaza where I came from.
But I am living proof of their lies and I will speak up as long as I’m alive.
My boyfriend didn’t die that way.
He didn’t fall from a roof.
No, his rooftop was shattered on top of him, along with his entire family, while they slept in peace. Innocent.
He never harmed a soul, not even a butterfly.
He was the kind of person who gave butterflies, who drew them, who loved the beauty of their wings and the softness of their flight.
He was nothing like the hate they paint us to be.
He was pure, and the oppressors took him away because the world’s a failure.
Not for who he was, but for who the occupiers wanted him to be a casualty of something they could never understand.
And here we are the world, disconnected from the truth, picking at the pieces of a narrative the colonizers don’t live.
These oppressors can’t hear the silence of our grief, the way it echoes in the hearts of those who’ve lost.
They don’t see the faces, the lives, the love that gets erased, drowned out by headlines, by politics, by convenience.
They speak of us, but they don’t see us.
They tell their lies, but they don’t feel the truth of our lives.
“The perfect victim.”
A carefully constructed image, a box that some lives fit into, and others never will.
It’s a divide, a way to pick and choose who is worthy of their tears, who gets to be seen, who gets to be mourned.
It's racism dressed up as compassion, a hierarchy of suffering.
If you're not the right skin, the right religion, the right story, then you’re ignored and forgotten.
And your pain?
It’s drowned out by the noise of selective empathy.
The world is silent about Gaza and Palestine, silent about the Muslims and Christians who live there, silent about minorities, silent about people of color in Sudan, silent about people in Congo, in Haiti because they don’t fit the image of who the global powers think deserves to be saved.
They don’t see us, not the Arabs, not the people of color, They fail to acknowledge our LGBTQ+ community.
We’re all just afterthoughts, buried under the weight of a narrative that doesn’t include us.
But we are still here.
We are still alive. And no matter how much the occupations and oppressors try to erase us, we will not be silent.
I said Occupations because I believe the whole world is occupied.
When I say Occupation I don't want you to think of military suited men, nor bullets flying by, bombs and fear.
Every occupation has their methods, unexplainable hard life, disconnection from reality, governments feed to everyone, broadcasting lies and using tools to make you end up being controlled.
Our truth exposes all of their games, Gaza is freeing everyone!
The whole world is occupied, in fact the world has cancer and Palestine is just a symptom.
Our truth speaks louder than their propaganda; no need for a propaganda machine when truth stands on its own.
Truth is, for this disgraceful inhumane world, the perfect victim is the dead one, and only for a couple of days, and then everyone goes back to their lives.
We are still alive. And no matter how much the occupations and oppressors try to erase us, we will not be silent.
I said Occupations because I believe the whole world is occupied.
When I say Occupation I don't want you to think of military suited men, nor bullets flying by, bombs and fear.
Every occupation has their methods, unexplainable hard life, disconnection from reality, governments feed to everyone, broadcasting lies and using tools to make you end up being controlled.
Our truth exposes all of their games, Gaza is freeing everyone!
The whole world is occupied, in fact the world has cancer and Palestine is just a symptom.
Ahmad Al Shaer Aka Gazzablanka, a queer Gazan writer, dreamer and survivor. You can support their work here
.png)
