And i,
as i stood there,
Caught between a screen of lies and my own
Fluttering heartbeat, watching as the people
i thought
were supposed to be advocates of
Truth suddenly turned away from the children
And the women
And the animals
And the men
And the bloodshed
And went on with their comfortable lives
within me, a torrent of grief but if i grieve for
A girl no older than my little sister,
Who was shot ‘by mistake’ with
God knows how many 200+ bullets, (365)
I will be slapped in the face with a label and asked
“But how can you condemn the 7th?”
How can you condemn every year of bloodshed before the
7th, every day of the starved people, women, children, before the
7th nobody cared except for few who tried to bring to light before the
7th and after the 7th now they document their own crimes of celebrating
After leveling schools and homes.
And completely demolishing masjids and other places of worship,
And watching the people race for a piece of bread
We celebrate with the 4th of July with fireworks
While they suffer through explosives of a different kind
So don’t ask me, “But how can you condemn the 7th?”
When you can’t comprehend the fact that this all began in 1948.