The Monsters Don’t Hide Under Beds - A poem for the children of Gaza

[Eva Libre]

The Monsters Don’t Hide Under Beds
A poem for the children of Gaza

A child’s nightmare is a whisper under the bed.
It’s a screen gone suddenly to static,
the cold shame of wetting the sheets in the dark.
Some fears are silly. Some are innocent.

But no child’s nightmare could have written the script
for what the children of Gaza have lived.

Their vivid little minds aren’t wild enough
to imagine burying their own friends.
Or chasing a water truck barefoot,
so baby sister can have a sip.

The monsters in Gaza don’t hide under beds—
they wear uniforms in broad daylight.
They speak in human tongues, but with hollow words.
They are perfectly formed,
except for the place where their hearts used to be.

And the drones—
they buzz so loud they make grown men
tremble and piss themselves in silence.

There are no cartoons in Gaza,
only collapsing walls
and skies that rain metal.
Destruction as far as the eye can see—
and yet the horrors are even closer
to the near-sighted
and the blind.

Because even the blind in Gaza can feel it.
And those outside?
They have eyes,
but they don’t see.
They have ears,
but they’ve asked not to hear anymore.

And one child—
shaking, breathless—
asked me to please look.

To look at the collapsing walls,
to see the monsters in the day.

Because maybe, just maybe,
your heart is not a lie.

* * *

Hani Almadhoun
www.gazasoupkitchen.org