Woe be to the soul that betrays its own heart, that forgets the pulse of justice in its chest, that sells its voice for power and its peace for comfort.
And woe be to my pen if it can’t write about humanity, if it can’t capture the screams, the silence, the broken hearts.
And woe be to my soul if it turns away from the truth— if it lets the world burn without a single word to fight back.
These years have ripped something out of me. I watched children buried in dust while the world debated “context.” Their toys melted, their names erased, and somehow, somehow the ones with blood on their hands still called themselves civilized.
Tell me,what kind of power fears a baby in a crib?
Don’t tell me about democracy, when it folds at the sight of a child’s body wrapped in a keffiyeh. Don’t tell me about justice, when a lynx had more courage than a thousand leaders combined. A wild cat had more humanity than humans.
Don’t talk to me about peace, when the world watched babies die in high definition,and called it “complicated.” When the ones in suits just sat there, inking deals with fingers still warm from handshakes in hell. They didn’t just stay silent—they made silence a weapon. Cold. Calculated. Cowardly.
And humans? Humans sat with their morning tea,scrolling past burnt bodies like they were just pixels. The hashtags fade. The souls don’t.
I’m not here to be gentle. I’ve seen too many corpses to whisper. This isn’t poetry, it’s what’s left after the screaming stops. To the ones who bomb, who burn, who bury, you may silence tongues, but you will never erase the truth written in scars.
To the children in Gaza, you are not forgotten. You were never weak. You were never the threat. You were the test. And we…we failed.
— Sadia Hakim