Birthed from the soul haunting paintings and videos of Palestinian artists and vloggers. 

You want to know 
If I sleep?
I don’t anymore, not normally
But when I do 
When my eyeballs roll back in my head
From exhaustion and from dread
I dream
I’m splayed across
Broken stones 
And clay begotten slivered bricks
Shattered bones 
And severed heads 
Skin like parchment 
Bomb-buoyed, paper-thin 
Every pore missile-singed 
Flying in the wind
Up, up into the sky 
I send a prayer with my eyes 
I lift a leg and scrutinise 
The other one 
It lies unsprung, unsung, wrung 
From its muscles and ligaments 
It lies in the dust 
The dust is whipped into a storm
It brings along 
The smell of death 
Of rocket-burnt flesh
Bloody, fear-soaked it’s a mesh 
It clings to me 
I can hear
Each howling soul 
As it holds me close 
I let it grip me as it curls
Into my ears as they bleed 
Quietly so silently 
Tenderly, bedecking me 
My lobes dripping in rubies 
There is no sound anymore 
My wings unfurl I float away 
As they gently gently weep
The tired lifeblood out of me.