It's 1992. We are living, but we are not alive.
The night sky that once allowed you to examine each and every star is no longer the same. Now, it is filled with flames, making you wonder when night ends and day begins.
We have nothing tangible. No water, no food, no electricity, no guns. What we do have is fear.
Fear alone.
No longer do we hear the rooster's crow at the crack of dawn. Instead, the sound that fills our ears is the constant echo of explosions and bullets tearing down our town, killing our people. The sounds don't wake us anymore. We are already awake. Sleep is a luxury saved for those without fear.
Day after day we watch our people get attacked, hurt, and killed. Kids are crying for the father they will never see again. Mothers are crying for the son they will never hold again.
Everyone is crying for the life they will never have again.
As they force us out of our houses, the houses that we built, and passed down generation after generation, we stop and take a look back. The house that once brought us the beautiful feelings of love, comfort, and safety will now belong to those that brought us the feelings of fear, sorrow, and desperation.
May our screams haunt them every night as they try to sleep where we once laid.
The world is watching, but they don't see our tears. The world is listening, but they don't hear our screams. The world turns its back as we bury our family members one by one.
The world has blood on its hands, yet they don't seem to mind.
We once lived amongst each other in peace. Our religions and backgrounds didn't matter. Our land was their land. Our home was their home. We all welcomed each other. We all helped each other. We all accepted each other. That acceptance was the true definition of beauty.
None of that was enough.
You see, sometimes humans lack humanity, and crave the things that they think make the world go round: land, money, and power. They are wrong. Craving those three things only ends with bodies falling to the ground.
Bodies are still falling to the ground today because others haven't satisfied this craving.
These are innocent bodies.
The bodies of men, women, and children. Children who never stood a chance all because of the name they carried, culture they belonged to, or because of the God their parents prayed to.
After all of our towns were destroyed, half of our people killed, and the other half displaced, the world finally said enough.
The world tore our land and renamed our towns, streets, and buildings so that the oppressors would be happy. They gave what is rightfully ours to them, never thinking twice about what we would feel like stepping into the now occupied town that was once ours. That should be ours. That in our hearts will always be ours.
The majority of the oppressors still roam freely. They watched their kids grow up, their families full of life, and their hearts ticking without skipping a beat.
We on the other hand roam our own land with constant glances over our shoulder, jumping at every noise we hear. So many of us are only able to watch our kids and parents through visiting their graves. Our families are full of sickening death.
Our hearts don't beat the same way anymore. It seems that each beat is now followed by a crack-a crack that grows. We will only be able to hold ourselves together for so long.
I used to wonder why the world didn't hear our screams. I wondered why our tears, our deaths, and our pain meant so little. Does the world have no shame?
I now understand why.
It's not that they didn't hear them, it's that they chose to ignore them. This wasn't the first time the world heard those screams. In fact, our screams were mere echoes of those that were already loudly filling the air.
They are screams that have never stopped since starting. Screams that continue to get louder and louder the longer the world chooses to play deaf. Voices that continue to shout, "you said never again," but here we are again.
They are the screams of those who once welcomed with open arms the same people who then stole their land. The screams echo over the walls that were built to keep them out. They echo through the open-air prisons that they're locked inside of for the rest of their life.
The screams are for food, for water, for power, for safety. They scream out of fear. They scream out of desperation. They scream as they are being forced at gunpoint out of their houses that they built and passed down for generations. They scream for the killing to stop, they scream for the family they bury, they scream for the humanity that they deserve.
The world said never again, as the blood continued to drip off of its hands. They have no right to speak those words because saying never again would imply that their suffering had an end. It didn't. It doesn't.
It's 2021. They are living, but they are not alive.
The Bosnia that once was is now forever locked-up in chains, but they still stand a chance.
Free Palestine.
-A
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