Audience Capture

[Eva Libre]

Sometimes, when I’m on an airplane without internet, I lean back in my seat, close my eyes, and chase the clouds.

The noise fades but the ache remains, a quiet companion in the cabin air.

I drift between memory and grief, between sky and soil.
The pain is always there, faithfully present,
chasing our resilience through every altitude
trying to catch it, trying to crush it.

And somewhere in that silent battle between despair and defiance
I begin to write.

Not because it makes the pain go away
but because it keeps the truth alive.

Hani Almadhoun
www.gazasoupkitchen.org

Audience Capture

Gaza knows the script by heart.

They say: give the people what they want.
But if the people are starving, bleeding—
if the people are ghosts?

What if your audience
is strapped to the front row
of a theater built from rubble,
where the play is war
and the actors never die—
only children do?

We are the captive audience.

They test their weapons here,
their policies, their patience.
What we call survival,
they call strategy.

The only spotlight
is the red light from a drone.

And then come the voices—
well-meaning, well-dressed,
singing someone else's song,
the one they think will sell.

Their tongues twist
to fit the algorithm.
Applause caught their tongues.

But the bombs don’t care
about your engagement metrics.
The snipers don’t pause
for your rebrand.

Tens of thousands
will never hear your pivot,
and hundreds of thousands more
can’t walk your timeline.
Two million too hungry to scroll.

But listen—
we still have our light.
It’s small, it flickers,
it refuses to lie.

Let them fear that.

by Abu Zayna