VOICES FROM THE SHROUD

Don’t mention the children.
Don’t name the dead children.
The people must not know the names
of the dead children.
The names of the children must be hidden.
The children must be nameless.
The children must leave this world
having no names.
No one must know the names of
the dead children.
No one must say the names of the
dead children.
No one must even think that the children
have names.
People must understand that it would be dangerous
to know the names of the children.
The people must be protected from
knowing the names of the children.
The names of the children could spread
like wildfire.
The people would not be safe if they knew
the names of the children.
Don’t name the dead children.
Don’t remember the dead children.
Don’t think of the dead children.
Don’t say: “dead children.”

Write my name on my leg, Mama
Use the black permanent marker
with the ink that doesn’t bleed
if it gets wet, the one that doesn’t melt
if it’s exposed to heat

Write my name on my leg, Mama
Make the lines thick and clear
and add your special flourishes
so I can take comfort in seeing
my mama’s handwriting when I go to sleep

Write my name on my leg, Mama
and on the legs of my sisters and brothers
This way we will belong together
This way we will be known
as your children

Write my name on my leg, Mama
and please write your name
and Baba’s name on your legs, too
so we will be remembered
as a family

Write my name on my leg, Mama
Don’t add any numbers
like when I was born or the address of our home
I don’t want the world to list me as a number
I have a name and I am not a number

Write my name on my leg, Mama
When the bomb hits our house
When the walls crush our skulls and bones
our legs will tell our story, how
there was nowhere for us to run

A fire roars upon a strip of land, I
haven’t slept since yesterday, a parade of fireworks, or
Am I dreaming again? I know nothing
of the moon’s frost beyond this armageddon,
only rolling faces, turning black to bludgeon,
the tv screens spew neon lies,
Because of you, the children are accustomed to heaven.

Alert of a pain that finds no dead end, when the black light
leaps out onto families weaving hands tightly in blankets
inside each stone house,
Hold what is important, they say, your heads and shoulders,
knees, and thighs,
your limbs, my heart, your wrist,
The softness of your soul. wisdom on your tongue.
your eyes never closing, seeing something
happening here. It took 2 hours to
bury a family of 5.

Ribbons in Rubble
damaged schools, there is an orphanage, where the smoke huddles
Grasping roots, desperately to survive, but there is no fear, only faith, this faith says that
it will pass tonight.

Yesterday my families bodies were,
massacred in the neon light of your screen,
now our house has just
collapsed. My home. I have lived in it for
20 years, a home is like entering Jerusalem for the first time,
A refuge, this is all I know, existing in this black abyss where all I breathe is occupied air,
something happens here. It happens very fast. I disappear, then reappear, I blend between the dirt and the grass.
I die and become another,
and another, just a number,

Something happened to her here, she lost
her mother, she is only 10, she knows nothing but her hands, her skin, and the walls of her protection. She knows nothing else, but a strip of land,
a siege,
a sea,
a heart at the barrel of rage.
Something happened here.

Mohammed Suleiman Akram Al-Sardi

The sun never rose on your tenth birthday,
because you were never given one.
You did not live to count in double figures.
Like every child, you carried tomorrow inside you.

Who did you dream of becoming?
A teacher?
A doctor?
A footballer?
Or had you not yet decided,
because childhood should never hurry?

Did you chase a football through dusty streets?
Laugh with your friends until your mother called you home?
What meal made you run home faster?
How many voices filled your family home?

I hope some of those voices are still here
still speaking your name so time cannot erase it.

Yesterday, I wrote your name on a shroud,
a shroud divided into twenty thousand boxes,
each waiting for the name of a child,
so the world cannot say
it did not know.

Twenty thousand names.
Twenty thousand stolen futures.
Twenty thousand living gifts to the world.
Twenty thousand names.
And yours is one of them.

Mohammed Suleiman Akram Al-Sardi,
I want to tell you,
you are not a statistic.
Not a tally.
Not another number
added to a growing count.

You were a child.
And while your name is spoken,
you will remain
far more
than a number.

Forgive us. Forgive us for our silence.
Forgive us for our complicity.

Forgive us for the weapons that fell on your homes.
Forgive us for the votes of our governments.

Forgive us for the taxes that funded your destruction.
Forgive us for the media that dehumanized you.

Forgive us for the world that looked away.
Forgive us for not preventing your slaughter.

Forgive us for failing to protect you as you deserved to be protected.

Tell them
We did not live silent
We lit up the sky
We laughed
We took care of each other

Tell them
We were broken
But we did not live silent
We reached for the impossible
And it was impossible

If I die
Tell them
We did not live silent
We sang
We taught
We learned
We grew
We messed with each other
We danced
And we danced
We made it work
We prayed for each other
We cried
We held each other

But tell them
We did not live silent
We resisted
And resisted
And resisted
And resisted
We bled
We stitched each other up
We leaned on each other
We fed each other

Tell them
We did not live silent
We told stories at night
We rode at dawn
We ran for our lives
We swam for our lives
We risked it all
We never gave up
Until the last breath

Tell them
We did not live silent
And we died
Free