DEATH Poem: To live for them, by Tamara Fakhoury

I am the lucky one. The streets here
don’t crack beneath the sky doesn’t
burn with fire, and I walk unscarred
while they stay, buried in the dust of
a land that won’t let them go. I live
for them. For the children who play
with shattered glass, for the mothers
whose eyes are too tired to cry. I live
for the lives they can’t have, the life
stolen from them with every breath
they take.

They ask if I’m safe. I say
yes, but the word feels
hollow, like something
stolen from their mouths.
How can I be safe, when
they are still there,
holding onto hope
beneath skies that never
forget what it means to
suffer?

I take their names with me
a prayer on my lips.
I carry their lives, their
dreams, their breath,
across the distance. And
I will live for all of us,
even when I don’t know
how to carry this weight.

I call my mother, her voice trembling
on the line. She tells me I should be
careful, that I shouldn’t talk about it
too much, that it’s not my fight, not
with my passport, not with my
privilege. “Don’t make waves,” she
says,

“Don’t risk what you have.”

But how do I stay quiet,
when the blood of the land
is my own?
How do I stay silent, when
I think of the families just
like mine, just like us, torn
apart by borders, by
bombs, by history’s
weight?

How can I be safe, when their
faces fill my thoughts, when I
imagine their children playing in
the rubble, instead of in the
fields that I used to play in? How
do I not speak, when all I can
think of is that this could have
been us that it could have been
my family left in the dust of a
forgotten world?

I carry their voices, and
sometimes, I hear my
mother’s too, warning me to
protect myself, but her love
feels small, shrinking in the
shadow of a world that won’t
let go of its grief.

I will carry their weight, I will
carry their stories, even if it
means I can never rest.
Because what is safety when
you live with the fear that you
might be next?