translated by Batool Abu Akleen (Palestinian poet and translator)
For 300 days, I was accompanied by Anya—my camera, and my only good friend who knew how to catch things, how to take the photos I wanted. For 300 days, my brothers and I were being killed in this massacre. Blood has been flowing over the ground, and I’ve become afraid of the moment when my brothers’ blood will reach me, will stain me. For 300 days, we’ve been seeing only black and red, smelling the scent of death, eating bitter apples, touching only corpses.
It’s the first time I have experienced such a massive loss. I have lost 11 members of my family, the dearest to my heart. Still, nothing can stop me. I roam the streets every day without any master plan. I just want the world to see what I see. I am taking photos to archive this period of my life. I am taking photos of this history which my sons might hear of, or might not.
We, we’re dying here every day in many colors and shapes. I die a thousand times when I see a child suffer; I splinter, I turn into ashes. It hurts me, what we’ve become. This nonsense hurts me, and this monster that eats us every day: it hurts.
Every day when I leave, I see my mother waving goodbye, but I don’t turn around. I don’t want to see those eyes. I don’t want all this sorrow for my mother, but what is there in this city? It is only death.
On mentioning death, the inevitable death:
If I must die, I want a resonant death. I want to be neither a newsflash, nor a number within a group. I want a death heard by the whole world, an impact imprinted forever, and everlasting photos that won’t be buried by time or place.
~ from: https://arablit.org/2025/04/20/a-resonant-death-poems-reflections-by-fatima-hassouna
