I was silent and nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
I spoke and nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
I cursed, I apologized, and nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
I was busy, I pretended to be busy\u2026and nothing.<\/p>\n
I sat, I walked, I ran.<\/p>\n
I shivered and I warmed up. Nothing.<\/p>\n
I was parched until I cracked. I drank until I drowned, and nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
I crumbled like a fetus, like the father, the siblings, and the mother.<\/p>\n
I was then gathered in a shroud made of old curtains,<\/p>\n
and nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
I stumbled more than I could stand but then I stood up,<\/p>\n
and nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
I prayed until, like a prophet, I became a verse in a holy book,<\/p>\n
I rowed until I reached hell,<\/p>\n
I beseeched and begged \u2026and nothing.<\/p>\n
I raged, I calmed, I remembered what was once distant,<\/p>\n
and I forgot what was always close.<\/p>\n
I befriended a monster, and I fought a monster.<\/p>\n
I died young and sometimes survived.<\/p>\n
In both times, I grew old from all that I had seen,<\/p>\n
but nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
I charged, I withdrew,<\/p>\n
I fought the wind when it blew,<\/p>\n
And reconciled with the waves when I rose and raged.<\/p>\n
Among the horses my heart was a horse,<\/p>\n
in the night my heart was a night,<\/p>\n
and nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
I ate, I hungered, I vomited, and nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
I embraced my shadow, and I chastised it and then I chastised myself.<\/p>\n
I greeted a woman lost in the streets.<\/p>\n
I fought with a man and his smile nearby,<\/p>\n
and with a bird that sang briefly in the garden,<\/p>\n
and nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I closed all the windows in my house and opened them.<\/p>\n
I wrote words on death when it is merciful,<\/p>\n
death when it is futile,<\/p>\n
death when it is hell,<\/p>\n
death when it is the only way\u2026at last,<\/p>\n
death when it is gentle and light,<\/p>\n
death when it is heavy and dark,<\/p>\n
and nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
I wrote about the river and the sea, about tomorrow and the sun,<\/p>\n
and nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
I wrote about oppression and depravity \u2013 purity too.<\/p>\n
I slept without a bite of bread.<\/p>\n
I dreamt without dreams.<\/p>\n
I woke up not missing my hands or feet or reflection in the mirror<\/p>\n
or the thing I call my soul.<\/p>\n
I died and lived. I lit myself on fire. I put myself out with my own ashes,<\/p>\n
and nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I am all these elements, O God: fire, earth, wind, and water.<\/p>\n
Their fifth is a pain that blind songs can\u2019t see, their sixth is this immense<\/p>\n
loneliness, and their seventh, since my slaughter, is blood.<\/p>\n
When I burned, I inhabited the letters of my free name like a butterfly:<\/p>\n
P A L E S T I N E<\/p>\n
When my roof was suddenly blown off into the sky and with it a wall, a window,<\/p>\n
and the youngest of my children,<\/p>\n
I gathered myself in the G and the A and the Z and the A.<\/p>\n
I became GAZA.<\/p>\n
A thousand warplanes circled and hit me. I collapsed and collapsed again,<\/p>\n
and then rose in a scream. I called out, but nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
Nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
Nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
I lost faith and believed, lost faith and believed again,<\/p>\n
and lost faith and believed and\u2026<\/p>\n
nothing came of it,<\/p>\n
nothing came of it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And the filthy world asks me:<\/p>\n
All this\u2026what of it?<\/p>\n
*********************************<\/p>\n