{"id":269061,"date":"2024-07-15T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T11:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=269061"},"modified":"2024-07-10T04:19:24","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T03:19:24","slug":"x-days-since-the-genocide-began","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/07\/x-days-since-the-genocide-began\/","title":{"rendered":"X Days Since the Genocide Began"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I feel an obligation not to cry
\naround my dog
\nelse she gets frightened<\/p>\n

and shakes. I\u2019m not comparing
\nchildren to dogs like Israel does,
\nbut they share emotionality<\/p>\n

and deep sensitivity and her shaking
\nreminds me of the videos I downloaded
\nonto my phone of Gazan children<\/p>\n

shaking in fear in hospitals
\nthat had only weeks left until
\nUS-made bombs destroyed them.<\/p>\n

I dreamt someone was
\nwriting on my eye,
\nthe tip of the ballpoint pen<\/p>\n

silently scribbling what I knew
\nbut couldn\u2019t see
\nto be Arabic calligraphy.<\/p>\n

Half-ticklish, half-squeamish,
\nI was drugged or otherwise
\nparalyzed, sunk in a fluffy bed.<\/p>\n

If I was Christian I might think
\nit was the intake process
\nfor heaven, my virtues and sins<\/p>\n

entered into the record. The eyewriting
\nbegan to feel like paper cuts
\nI couldn\u2019t flinch from.<\/p>\n

I was going to heaven blind and
\nparalyzed. That might\u2019ve been worse
\nthan whatever hell was. Or is this<\/p>\n

what was meant by hell\u2014not a
\nseparate place for a different passport,
\njust heaven\u2019s lower caste?<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t see it but I knew,
\nas if it had been whispered in my ear,
\nthere were no Palestinians in hell.<\/p>\n

In the bright emptiness,
\nthat\u2019s what made me cry
\nand force myself to stop.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

____________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Jul 18 Issue<\/em><\/p>\n

Edward Salem\u2019s first book of poems, <\/em>Monk Fruit, will be published in 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – nybooks.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I couldn\u2019t see it but I knew,
\nas if it had been whispered in my ear,
\nthere were no Palestinians in hell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":115837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[865,88,2497,868,70,886],"class_list":["post-269061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-format","tag-genocide","tag-israel","tag-palestinians","tag-poetry","tag-usa","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269061"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269065,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269061\/revisions\/269065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}