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remi@poeticinjustice.net

As we strap
Bombs to our chests
Like grade school kids
Strap bags to their backs
Our hearts lapse

Because the only thing
We smell is death
And the only thing we feel
Is the cold breath
That makes ours necks stiff

Our pain
Is one link
In a chain
Of 38 years of oppression
And our children
Were dead at inception
Brought into a world
With no protection
From tank shells
And the hell of strip searches

While the world grieves for Tel Aviv
I wonder
Where are the apologies for Gaza City?
Where our families are dying everyday
Because of Israeli artillery

We clench rocks in our fists
As a means to resist
The occupation we witness
We will not be forgotten
Left rotting
Like the food you refuse entry

As your settlers beat our elementary
School children
A new militant picks up a weapon
As a mother’s eight year old son
Is gunned down near the Apartheid Wall
Another mother crawls under barb wired
Not thinking of virgins
But the desire to her son again

The world paints us to be the cruel
Fools of terrorism
The only way to be dealt with
Is isolation, economic strangulation
And dehumanization

But we’re not Bin Laden
We didn’t fly planes into buildings
We’re civilians
Trying to survive in a world that doesn’t hear our cries
And so we die
In the same fashion
That our children’s lives were taken
Desperate, defenseless, subdued
I may be a killer now
But you were the best teacher
I ever had

July 2006