I LONG FOR MY OLD WORLD
I long for Gaza before the genocide,
when winter nights weren’t warmed by heaters, but by my grandfather’s voice threading through the cold,
telling tales that curled around our fingers like steam from tea.
I long for his house, where peace was in every corner,
like the sunlight that filtered through lace curtains.
I long for the garden trees, for the way his hands—older than the soil—lifted the water and gave it to them each morning like a ritual.
I long for my uncle’s house,
for the way my aunt’s laughter lingered in the kitchen long after she had gone.
I long for my uncle and all my cousins—
not just names, but traces of warmth.
I long for the moments I sat beside my uncle,
his voice is a timeless rhythm, a heartbeat from the past.
He spoke as if every word mattered,
every pause held something sacred, something unsaid.
Back then, we lived through golden hours we mistook as ordinary—
only now do we see how brightly they shone.
I long for our talks, the softness of voices mingling over tea,
and for the laughter that arrived for no reason.
I long for my loved ones,
who used to walk in and light up the hallway with their presence,
filling the air with footsteps, stories, and smells of food that meant love.
I long for the faces that once made rooms feel like entire cities—
the ones who didn’t just exist.
I long for my friends,
for the late-night conversations that stretched endlessly into the dark,
where our dreams soared higher than the kites we never had the chance to finish building.
We spoke of futures as if we held the stars in our hands,
and our words could shape the course of hope itself.
We passed round books, shared our deepest thoughts, and asked questions that seemed trivial—yet each conversation wove us closer together, a delicate thread binding our days, keeping us connected in the face of time.
I long for my school,
where the sound of the bell marked the beginning of endless possibilities,
and the chalk dust danced in the air, carrying whispers of unspoken dreams.
I long for the Islamic University,
where the buildings were more than structures—they were the foundation of my future,
where my aspirations were born.
I long for the teachers who pushed me to speak English,
and the professor who smiled gently and said, “Mistake is halal”—
as if failure were not something to fear, but a necessary part of learning.
I long for the streets we walked,
and for the mosques where our whispered prayers rose like birds—
free, fierce, and full of faith.
I long for the simple life,
for moments we didn’t notice because we were too busy living them.
For the safety that used to wrap Gaza like a mother’s shawl,
for mornings that began with bread, instead of breaking news.
I long for the peace that arrived with the call to prayer—
and stayed until the second cup of tea.
For Fridays with the big chicken dish,
its scent traveling down the stairs before the plate ever reached the table.
I long for the way the family gathered—shoulder to shoulder, story to story—
how laughter rose like steam from rice,
and home felt less like a place and more like a breath you didn’t want to exhale.
But most of all,
I long for the girl I was—
the one who smiled without fear,
whose laughter didn’t tremble when windows rattled,
who dreamed with arms wide open,
wore hope like a favorite color,
a constant flame that never dimmed.
She was whole,
before sorrow etched cracks on her joy,
grief became her shadow,
and the world grew heavy with loss.
Back then, each new day was a sky,
Endless, without limits.
She believed tomorrow was hers to walk—
step by step, without fear,
unaware that genocide would come,
drawing red lines through her dreams,
scattering them like the forgotten pages of a diary.
That girl,
The one before the storm,
Before her world turned to ash—
She is the one I long to be again.
SAUDADE
SAUDADE – a Portuguese and Galician word capturing the ache of profound longing for someone or something absent, a bittersweet nostalgia for what may never return. It is the echo of moments, feelings, or places that linger in memory, stirring both beauty and melancholy.
Oh, my mind—
let’s sit down tonight and speak in silence,
for the noise inside is louder than bombs,
and the smoke of worry
blurs my view of the stars.
I am drained—
not by walking,
but by carrying the weight
of questions with no answers.
I am like a burning tree
in the middle of a genocide zone—
every leaf is a memory,
every root is a wound.
My soul is dug up
like ruins after a raid,
shattered into fragments
too brittle to name.
I want to scream,
but my voice
is buried under
the rubble of grief.
Instead of shelter,
I find a battlefield
in my own mind—
where I fight myself
each sleepless night.
I make my escape
from the bullets of thought,
but they follow me
like shadows
in broad daylight.
I see the sky crack open
not with rain—
but with silence
too loud to bear.
We are a generation
gasping for air
in a room full of smoke,
begging for peace
as a newborn begs for breath.
We carry saudade
in every heartbeat—
a longing for what we lose
and for what we never have.
Even sleep
is no longer a refuge —
our dreams turn
into documentaries
of what we lose.
Still,
with each breath,
I carry hope—
a flame trembling in the storm
yet stubborn,
unyielding,
and alive.
WE REMEMBER
We remember the streets that no longer exist,
the cracks in the pavement where we once ran.
We remember the laughter, sharp and bright,
echoing off walls that are gone.
We remember the faces that sunlight no longer touches,
the hands we held, now only shadows.
We remember the songs we sang together,
notes hanging in the air, frozen, unfinished.
We remember the walls of our childhood homes,
the doors that led to bedrooms we cannot enter again.
We remember each breath, stolen or given,
the warmth of a hug that was ripped away.
We remember the smells of kitchens, of gardens,
of rain on rooftops, and the dust of familiar streets.
We remember the voices calling names
that now exist only in our mouths.
We remember every broken window,
every silent street, every wall that fell.
We remember the traces of our own footsteps,
walking through ruins, through shadows, through fire.
We remember the sun setting over rooftops we will never climb again,
the stars that watched us sleep, the nights we dreamed together.
We remember every memory like a photograph
etched in ash and bone.
And still, we remember.
And still, we rise through the remembering.
THREE DAYS OF ISOLATION
They don’t just cut the internet,
they cut the thread
that keeps us connected to the world—
and to ourselves.
No news.
No messages.
No way to say “I am still alive.”
For three days,
we are erased
from life outside these walls.
The hours don’t pass—
they stretch.
Each minute drags like chains.
Three days
feel like three years
with no proof
the world is still turning.
I keep whispering to myself:
Is this how it ends?
Will light ever return?
Has the world forgotten us?
Is anyone still out there—waiting, listening?
The occupation forces don’t just fire missiles—
they fire silence,
cutting us off
from breath, from news, from life.
It traps us alone
with our fears and memories.
When the outside world vanishes,
the inside one collapses.
Memories pour in
like a flood—
people I lost,
words I never said,
the version of me
that once believed
this nightmare would pass.
In that void,
I am not afraid—
I am forgotten.
Cut off from the sky,
from the warmth of voices
that once remind me
I am not invisible.
And when the signal finally returns,
when a single message blinks back to life—
the world rushes in.
But part of me
remains trapped
in those long, dark hours,
when I became a question suspended in the void,
left unanswered.
And still I ask:
How long
can a soul survive
without being heard?
A BATTLE NO ONE SEES
I am no longer who I am.
I sit before the page for hours—
it stares back at me,
yet gives me nothing.
It feels like my mind folds in on itself,
refusing to listen, to open.
How many pages do I stare at in vain?
How many recordings do I play and replay,
not to understand more deeply, but just to make a start.
I used to catch meaning in an instant.
Now, every letter demands double the effort,
every idea comes through a heavy fog.
I whisper to myself,
“Where are you?
You were faster, stronger…”
Then I fall silent,
because every time I remember who I was,
it feels like betraying that version of me.
This isn’t defeat.
It is a weariness that keeps returning—
a constant weight I carry,
day after day.
Not helplessness,
just a quiet going on
in a world that doesn’t give space
to catch my breath.
I don’t fall apart—
I still move,
in a battle no one sees,
no one understands.
THIS IS SLOW DEATH
I sit, back against the wall.
A mug warms my hand.
The air tightens.
A low hum sounds.
Far.
Fast.
The window shakes.
A shadow at the door.
I freeze—
eyes shut—
time holds its breath.
Family?
Friends?
Places breathing with me?
Laughter folded in notebooks.
Voices gone.
Life flickers behind closed eyes.
Seconds stretch.
The sound hits—
fists pounding.
Then—
it leaves.
Silence returns—
changed.
Eyes open.
The mug still warm.
The room is silent.
But something inside
has not survived.
FAMINE BY DESIGN
Empty shelves.
Canned food vanished—
hands reach for nothing.
In a world of full plates
and overflowing shelves,
a crumb of bread is rare.
What will we eat
when there is no food?
In the silence, stomachs growl
while hope fades.
Babies cry without sound—
no formula fills
their shrinking bellies.
Children die one by one,
starving and malnourished.
A boy holds a syringe,
counting insulin shots
that may never come.
Water drips from taps,
brown and bitter—
too dangerous to drink,
but people drink it anyway,
just to feel their stomachs full.
Old men sit outside,
their hands shaking
around empty cups.
Mothers trade their last bread
for a single pill,
hoping it will save
a child’s failing heart.
This hunger is
no accident, no mistake,
but a planned siege,
a slow, deliberate death.
We carry empty plates,
but eyes burning with truth.
We will not forget.
We will not forgive.
History will remember
the most merciless and televised occupation
the world has ever witnessed.
NO REST HERE.
The faces I loved
don’t vanish.
They fall away
like dust blown off a dry branch,
leaving hollows behind.
A voice—
once low and near,
like someone breathing beside me—
now fades out
before it lands.
Laughter
stays close to sleep.
They drift
above the cracked window
the stars used to visit.
One breath too late—
their faces blur into air.
The world turns.
Shops stay open,
but shelves are bare.
Voices rise
over things that never bleed.
Screens blink,
but none of them speak my language.
Silence
groans when I breathe.
Not absence—
just no one left
to feel the weight.
Fear knocks.
Sometimes it steps in.
It never stays long.
There is fire.
I breathe it.
There is death.
It walks beside me.
I stay alive—
not for peace,
but because
rest
has no place here.
MY BELOVED PRISON
You are the most beautiful place in the world,
yet you sit in solitude,
an abandoned bride at the edge of the sea.
The world has left you,
but we—only we—still love you.
I love you, Gaza,
because you breathe stubborn light
even when the sky rains fire.
I love you for the way children
draw suns on broken walls
as if the dawn was still theirs.
And yet I hate you, Gaza,
because the streets we loved have become chains.
Your nights have turned to coffins.
Your embrace has grown heavy with ruins.
You teach me hunger,
not the holy hunger of fasting,
but the hunger that gnaws at bone,
that steals laughter from a mother’s mouth.
Tell us, Gaza,
when will you return?
When will you rise again
with bread warm in your markets,
with glowing lanterns
instead of smoke?
You are not the Gaza we knew.
Where are the orchards?
Where is the salt of your fishermen?
Where are the doors that once stood open
with coffee and welcome?
Now you wear the mask of grief,
your windows are hollow eyes,
your body is stitched with rubble.
Still, beneath the ashes,
we remember your true face,
your origin,
your beauty is unbroken.
I love you, Gaza,
for the sea that refuses to leave you,
for the olive trees that cling
to your scorched earth,
for the voices that rise in song
even as the bombs fall.
You are my homeland
and my prison.
I live inside your walls
like a bird with broken wings,
that loves the nest
and fears the cage.
Gaza, my beloved,
why do you keep me captive,
when I have only ever loved you?
Gaza, my beloved, my prison,
my forgotten beauty—
tell me,
Will you ever return to yourself?
Will you ever set me free?
ALONE BUT UNBROKEN
Gaza stands alone,
facing the storm with bare hands.
The world watches, silent,
their voices empty,
their words weightless—
statements without teeth,
without fire,
without consequence.
Nations murmur,
but never move.
While Gaza bleeds under rubble and fire,
they craft speeches,
but abandon action.
We are the roots of this land,
older than empires,
stronger than the soil itself.
Crushed beneath concrete and ruin,
we rise,
unbroken,
our defiance sharp enough to pierce the sky.
Oppressors roar.
Their shadows stretch long,
trying to smother us.
But truth moves through the smoke,
a spark no bomb can kill.
No silence, no betrayal,
can erase what survives in us.
We breathe, we resist.
We carry the weight of history
and the memory of a land that refuses to die.
ONE MINUTE IN GAZA
One minute in Gaza, and the world splits under the weight of darkness.
A child’s breath shatters like broken glass—no pause, no mercy.
A mother’s eyes turn hard, resisting the waves,
tears fall like dust on stones that no hand reaches to gather.
Fathers clutch the splinters of their fractured dreams,
while bombs slice the night into screams hanging in the air.
Families collapse on the sidewalks,
streets melt beneath their feet like wax,
and memories drown in rubble, unhealed.
Hunger bites bones like winter frost,
plates remain empty, hearts stay hollow,
and pain crawls across faces like shadows creeping over light.
A single minute holds a thousand deaths,
fear soars above the skies like a predatory bird,
yet the pulse of life clings to existence,
day after day, between ash and smoke.
The clock relentlessly chases us,
each second presses like a stone on the shoulders,
and still—hearts rise.
Hope blazes in the darkness, an iron flame.
Yet in every ruined room, a spark survives,
a whisper threads through the smoke,
and in that whisper, life finds its home,
even in the darkest hours.
STILL HERE TOMORROW
I see the streets burning and children’s laughter breaking like glass against the walls of rubble,
I hear mothers whisper names into the smoke and the smoke carries them across destroyed neighborhoods,
I watch fathers clutch fragments of dreams, counting each heartbeat like a bullet in the night,
I feel the hunger crawling through empty homes, weaving itself into bones,
I smell bread burning, and water dripping bitter through rusted taps,
I touch ashes that fall from ceilings like snow, like snow no one prays for,
I hear the sky groan under drones, under bombs, under silence that suffocates.
I am not the map, I am not the number in the news,
I am the pulse beneath the dust, the flame in the rubble,
I am the child running barefoot across streets too narrow to carry fear,
I am the mother whose voice rises with every scream,
I am the man who builds from broken bricks, even as walls fall again.
The world watches, blind, deaf, inert,
while we bleed, while we rise,
while hope glows like fire through broken windows,
while the sky splits and the sun weeps molten light into alleys of grief.
We sing under sirens, dance beneath ruin,
we plant seeds in ash, grow voices in smoke,
we carry histories in our hands, histories they try to erase,
but every heartbeat refuses, every breath defies,
every child swims in air thick with destruction
and yet reaches for tomorrow.
Not just shadows fading into dust,
we stand, we scream, we live—
our bodies are poetry, our survival is revolt,
and we howl across the walls of silence,
for Gaza, for every soul, for every tomorrow they try to bury.
BENEATH THE ASHES
Shells fall like thunder, ripping the air apart,
Yet inside me, silence roars louder than any explosion.
My city burns, and so does my heart,
Every breath a battle, no moment of rest.
The streets wear scars words cannot hold,
Homes crumble slowly, like memories dissolving in rain.
But beneath the ruins, a storm begins to rise,
Not in the sky — behind our weary eyes.
I wake to hunger that numbs the bones,
And a voice inside that never leaves.
It whispers, “Let go, this weight is too much,”
But my fingers clutch on, desperate and raw.
I count the names I can no longer call,
Each one a silence that speaks everything.
Sleep does not come — not real, not kind —
Just dark hours alone with my mind.
I carry a war that no one sees,
In quiet moments and shattered peace.
My shoulders bend under the fight within,
Between letting go, or trying again.
Some days I crave a hidden cave,
Where no one asks, and I need not be brave.
To vanish into silence, to mute the sound,
Of bombs and grief spinning all around.
Yet something resists, even when drained,
A spark in the ashes that cannot be chained.
Though my heart is bruised, my limbs are sore,
I was not made to lie on the floor.
I am not the one who breaks halfway,
Who leaves the dream to rot and decay.
I bleed, I fall, but then I rise,
Because hope still lives behind tired eyes.
Let chaos climb, let walls decay,
I will find my light, carve my way.
I stand unbroken, though the night is long,
My scars tell stories where the brave belong.
No force can break what fire has refined,
I rise relentless — body, soul, and mind.
O FREE BIRD
You open your wings to the sky.
We fold ours in tight rooms.
You fly where no maps exist.
We are born inside lines no one can leave.
You glide on winds that never bind you.
We spin inside memories that never free us.
You drink from rivers, full and clear.
We drink in silence, waiting in endless lines.
You eat what grows.
We eat what resists rot.
You sing in morning light.
We hold our breath, listen for drones, then pray.
You cross oceans unnoticed.
We cross streets trapped by checkpoints and endless searches.
You build nests from twigs.
We build homes from rubble and hope.
You lose feathers.
We lose lovers, relatives, and friends.
You feel the breeze.
We feel the siren pierce our bones.
You are weightless.
We carry hunger, grief, and waiting.
You live in the sky.
We live in a cage called homeland.
But we love the cage.
Because it holds our stories.
O free bird, take me with you,
We want to see beyond these walls.
We soar where skies stretch wide and blue,
And you, grounded, dream of flight too.
You are free.
We are caged with names the world won’t say.
You vanish into clouds.
We vanish into the headlines.
Your wings slice silence.
Our throats hold back the stories.
O bird, trace our names in the wind.
Sing for the dreams trapped in rubble.
TO BE OR NOT TO BE — AN EXISTENTIAL QUESTION
Grief speaks slow, “You will lose it all.”
But something stirs — you still stand tall.
Doubt clouds your vision, blurs the way,
Yet hope dawns gently with the day.
Darkness threatens to swallow light,
But you push forward, claim the fight.
Pain weighs heavy, crushes your will,
But fortitude rises, unbroken still.
Lonely, wrapped in silent cold,
Love’s warmth beckons, tender, bold.
Shadows of failure haunt your mind,
but dreams remind you there’s more to find.
Despair screams loud, “It’s all in vain!”
Faith answers, “There’s still much to gain.”
Weariness drags you to the ground,
Determined, you rise without a sound.
Chaos inside tears you apart,
Yet calmness flows deep in your heart.
Confusion spins its dizzying maze,
But clarity shines on through the haze.
The battle rages, night and day,
The choice remains — to leave or stay.
To be – not just to breathe, but stay,
Walk through the fire, still choose the way.
SILENCE TEACHES
I sit in corners where shadows linger—
their weight presses like a quiet night,
and my heart spills rivers of thought
that no voice can ever contain.
The night unfolds its story around me
like smoke curling from a dying fire.
I am not the scream beneath falling bombs—
I am the breath that rises
when whispers scatter across empty streets.
No hand reaches,
yet in the hush, a quiet strength floats
between broken walls and drifting dust.
I hold grief like a small flame,
not to burn, not to hide,
but to live beside it,
letting its warmth teach me patience.
I trace fragments of memory,
edges sharp as winter wind,
and I wrap them in my hands—
they become wings,
soft enough to lift me
above shadows that cling like smoke to skin.
In the quiet, I learn
to inhale the weight of loss
and exhale the future slowly,
as if each breath paints a horizon
where light remains,
even in the darkest room.
SKY, TAKE ME
Sky — you are endless, and I am caged.
Carry me out of this place of graves, out of alleys
that memorize the weight of bodies.
Lift me above roofs that learned to fold like paper,
above chimneys that cough black names.
This is not my ground — it drinks only blood.
This is not my street — it speaks only in silence.
Walls here are witnesses that forgot mercy;
doorways are verdicts that never heard defense.
Take me where stars are not afraid of guns,
where constellations do not flinch at the flash of fire,
where the moon was a witness to dreams and not maps of ruin.
Take me to a horizon that does not count bones,
to a sky that refuses the arithmetic of loss.
Take me where breath is not a crime,
where inhaling is an act of return.
I do not belong to genocide —
I am not just another number.
I belong to breath, to light, to a horizon unbroken;
I belong to songs that were not given permits to die,
to laughter that insists on returning.
So take me —
not as ash scattered into a ledger of “casualties,”
not as a footnote in a report for cold calculations,
but as a living flame: a small stubborn heat
that knows how to change direction, how to keep rooms warm.
Carry my memories like stars,
Hold the names of those we’ve lost gently,
hang them like lamps so we can find our way home.
Teach my lungs to open without tasting ash;
teach my hands to lift without leaving weight behind.
Sky, be more than witness —
be river and refuge,
be tide that gathers what the shore cannot keep.
Be a place where my first sound at dawn is my own name, pronounced whole.
Let me sleep where the air is not an accusation and wake where daylight is not a question.
If I must remember, let the remembering be a bridge, not a chain.
Let memory teach me where to plant my grief so it will root instead of rot.
Let remembrance be grain — hard, survivable — not the dry dust of defeat.
We are small and stubborn; still we lift our faces to you.
We ask to be carried, not erased; to be held, not buried.
We ask that our songs be ferried across your blue, so the world learns them again.
Take me. Take us.
Not as monuments of pity, but as people of ember — steady, deliberate, alive.
Not as shadows lost in reports, but as voices that will not be catalogued into silence.
Sky — if you must witness, witness with mercy.
If you must count, count the breaths we reclaim.
Hold us wide, hold us whole, hold us
until we learn to stand again beneath our own light.
So take me —
not as ash,
but as a living flame.
BLIND WORLD
Blind world,
keep ignoring us.
Turn your face like you always do.
Shut your eyes to the blood.
Stay silent while we burn.
But we are here—
erased from your maps,
trampled in your headlines,
reduced to a footnote no one reads.
We are dreams lost before their time,
faces blurred on your screens,
silence pinned to a wall no one remembers.
Keep pretending,
live your life as if nothing happened,
but remember—
we held a life better than yours.
We hate you when you sleep
as our children dig their graves with bare hands.
We hate you when you laugh
and our voices break inside our throats.
We hate you when you move on
as if nothing is happening.
Not because you are strong,
but because you are cowardly.
Because you know,
and still choose not to care.
Blind world,
maybe you will erase us—
but you will never wash yourself clean of us.
We are the scar you cannot cover,
the voice that refuses to die,
we are the ones
who never forget.
WHISPERS OF HEALING
Oh, my soul,
come rest beneath the ancient olive’s shade,
where time slows its breath
and whispers mend the silent cracks.
I carry seasons within me—
not just winter’s chill,
but the gentle promise
of spring’s first bloom.
Your voice, a tender warmth,
wraps softly around me
like dawn’s first light
chasing away the long night’s shadows.
There’s a quiet strength
in letting go—
not forgetting the storm,
but learning how to breathe
through the calm that follows.
Each fear, once a stone,
now a seed beneath my feet,
waiting patiently
for the sun to call it home.
Take my hand—
no words needed—
just the steady pulse
of two hearts healing side by side.
We are more than scars,
more than battles fought unseen.
We are the roots
that hold steady beneath the earth,
growing deeper
with every breath of peace.
And when dawn breaks again,
it will find us
not broken,
but reborn—
carrying the light
that only the night
could teach us to hold.
IF I MUST FALL, YOU MUST RISE
If I must fall, then you must rise
To hold the truth beneath these skies
If my voice fades into the night,
Be a spark, a burning light
If my path lies scarred and torn,
You’ll still walk where I was born
When my hands can’t build or heal,
Yours will hold, yours will feel
If my heart breaks with the pain,
Yours will beat and break the chain
If my eyes no longer see,
Be my lookout, carry me
If I lose, you still must fight,
Pressing on with all your might
Our dreams—no enemy can take.
Our souls resist, despite the stakes
Though darkness tries to choke and blind,
Our hopes ignite, our futures shine
If I must die, then you must live
To tell the tales we have to give
Gaza is more than just one name—
It’s hope, it’s fire, an endless flame
TAQWA AHMED AL-WAWI
Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi is a Palestinian writer and poet from Gaza, and a 19-year-old English literature student at the Islamic University of Gaza. Through her writing, she seeks to amplify Gaza’s voice and shed light on stories often left untold. She contributes to We Are Not Numbers (WANN), and her work has appeared in outlets including The Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, The Palestine Chronicle, The Markaz Review, Middle East Monitor, Al Jazeera English, Middle East Eye, The Massachusetts Review, the Institute for Palestine Studies, Prism, The New Arab, The Intercept, Truthout, Politics Today, Opol, and ArabLit Quarterly. She is also an editor with Baladi Magazine, where her poetry has been published. VISIT HER WEBSITE➔https://tqwaportfolio-project.netlify.app
SELECTED POEMS OF TAQWA AHMED AL-WAWI
رائعة ، استمري 🕊️🩷