Day 50, Another war (2023)
Ly Thuý Nguyễn
I have almost forgotten the sound of my voice, which I was never fond of, but now kept having to speak. I have listened to so much and not enough, knowing more than many, but it doesn’t matter this is not something to learn by heart it is to learn so you don’t compromise your heart.
in the absence of bombs and the constant sounds of drones and helicopters circling in the sky above my building like vultures, their lots their hunger for the torn flesh under rubble homes a father collapsed a building, he said, for his 2-year-old daughter’s birthday a fiancé picked up jewelry from rested hands sticking out of wall pieces for his bride like vultures, their lots.
In the absence of death I cry until my voice coarse no mothers will appear out of thin air. I curse at being colonized.
I see, not in any particular order:
an infant with white lotions on their puffy, barely opened eyes, transparent bubble skin in tiny fingers
an old grandfather carefully spread open his granddaughter’s shut eyelids, wiping her face for the last time, kissing her two cheeks, putting his beard onto her two hair puffs so lovingly death is family, a break, Jannah, rest
bodies in white bags, Arabic letters written on them, “a mother with her baby inside.”
children holding their own press conference begging the world to help collapsed building behind them (the world heard them, but the leaders are already in office, and we know we have been ruled we just didn’t know our leaders were bloodthirst except we do
I will cry every day a funeral in words)
the boys released from illegal imprisonment, all children, all beloved. my grandfather and his peers would know, like them, that the world didn’t know or care about him then and them now
no food, no water, no electricity, gas. people are ancient and scientists. they used what they had to make what they needed. they ate little, drank little, prayed lots
Yah Allah I hear that so often I started understanding faith.
young people’s hair turned gray. homeless for days. turned journalist because people like me needed to see.
People walking by the hundreds of thousands, away from their homes and shot if coming back
Disfigured children
decomposed, too
dead doctors. believers.
collapsed churches and mosques.
the people who no longer recognize humanity or god
skin banks and organ trades. stolen, hollow corpses, mass graves
masses on the streets in every major city
Demanding justice. now.
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Bio: Ly Thuý Nguyễn (y/thị) kêu gọi các đồng nghiệp, người viết vẽ và nghệ sĩ sử dụng tiếng Việt hãy viết về/cho một Palestine tự do và một thế giới không hung ác.
