My head does not sleep, as if a hidden thread ties my eyelids to a distant guillotine. I try to steal a moment of rest, but my mind refuses to fall silent, as if it were watching from within. Scenes gather and press themselves between my thoughts, filling the space behind my eyes and forcing me to remain awake, as if sleep were a betrayal, and as if closing my eyes were a desertion of those behind bars who lack even the luxury of rest.
Everything has become more alive than it should be; the voices of those calling for help call out my name, and the lashes of the executioner carve their maps into my soul. The hounds tear into them, ripping away at their steadfastness, to satisfy the instinct of a jailer who delights in his sadism before the silence of the world. I do not merely witness what is happening—I am trapped inside it. I am the one being lashed, and I am the one crying for help, and I am the one waiting for this nightmare to end, but it does not end.
And today, they raise the so-called 'death penalty law,' to complete the tragedy of those who are killed twice: once when this world abandons them, complicit in its silence and coldness, and once when the rope of the gallows tightens around a neck that dared to defend its rights and its land.
This world frightens me, filling me with such terror that I wish I were not a part of it. For whoever is not shaken by the blood of a martyr will not be moved by the suffering of a prisoner. The problem lies in the 'human being' in whom humanity has died, turning into stone.
I want to be calm. I want a small space in my chest that this violence does not knock on. But I know that salvation is not in forgetting, but in sharing this pain, so that our hearts do not die while they are still beating. We are not merely witnesses; we are the remnants of a conscience trying not to drown in this sea of abandonment.
I am Aseel, a writer from Gaza, living amid genocide. Your support can help my family survive. https://chuffed.org/project/138285-help-sehwel-family-with-their-medical-treatment