Dear Palestine, I Will Never Forget
I Won’t Forget What I am Missing out On Because of A Genocidal Occupation
Dear Palestine,
I won’t forget.
I won’t forget the resentment I feel, because I will never walk through the Northern part of Gaza, and feel the wind on my face as I wander through the open-air markets.
I will not hear the voice of the Nona’s tell me stories of the old days, and I will never find the three olive trees that belonged to the family of my one and only friend who is descended from Palestine, but who never had the ability to visit her homeland.
I will never walk along the shore of the beach strip and feel the sun on my face as I gaze into the skies and feel the angels swarm around me.
I will never meet your children or play football in the streets with them.
I’ll never sip a cup of coffee again without thinking about the occupation, without knowing that I must choose deliberately to be careful where I spend my dollars so I don’t support Israel. A worthy and small consideration given what you’re going through.
I will probably not meet very many of you, with the years I have left, because I see Israel is killing so many people so fast, that we don’t have time to name every single one of the martyrs.
A martyr for those who don’t know is someone who is killed in the name of God. Israel has killed upwards of 15000 of them in just under a month.
It reminds me of my childhood, of saying goodbye to the soldiers before they flew half way around the world to countries like yours, where they occupied and killed dictators and evil guys.
That’s what I was told.
I won’t forget most of that was a lie.
They were killing, raping, and destroying, the lives of innocents, in the name of progress and in the name of white supremacy, because some guys who sit in well-lit offices with the most powerful people in the world surrounding them told them to.
I’ll remember.
I’ll bear witness. To every photo of every dead child I see, I will talk to God myself when I die, promise. Bet.
I’ll remind him that every dead child is also a dead angel, and dead angels breed only anger and resentment which leads to true evil, which is what we’re seeing from Israel now.
I never thought in all my years I’d have as full and rich an understanding of colonization, rape, war, and torture as I do right now. But I get it, I wish I didn’t Palestine, I wish I didn’t understand, don’t you?
Don’t you wish we could just travel from one place to another and be at peace? Don’t you wish we could meet one day just to say Hello as if it’s no big deal?
Instead every single Hello, is also a possible goodbye, for the people of Palestine.
A morning alive doesn’t mean that you’ll make it through the night, I see that now.
I’m not stronger for having been witness to what is happening, I am much much weaker because the more that I learn the more that I have to learn. The more that I have to stretch my brain muscles and I don’t mind doing it, it’s not easy work but it’s worthy work.
You are worthy Palestine, of existing, of being, of living, of having. You deserve that, and more.
The people of Canada have spoken we’ve told our government what we want and our government has ignored us but we won’t stop talking, fighting, praying, hoping, wishing, that you’ll be free.
You deserve freedom.
The people of Israel who kill, murder, rape, torture, decapitate, lie, and steal, they deserve jail, and worse.
They imprison your children and say it’s for your own good, for throwing rocks, for breathing, for laughing.
I know this now and I can’t I won’t turn back. I’m fighting to have the kind of life and presence that people take seriously, but it doesn’t change the fact that what I see happening here is wrong and it’s being done illegally so that the Americans can control a region that doesn’t belong to them.
I see that all and more, but most of all when I close my eyes at night Palestine i see you.
I see the beach water lit up with neon lights, I see dancing, I see singing, I see the people of Palestine persevering and reclaiming their land. Their home, and their place in the world.
This is what I want for Christmas, Nyx.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
