Do You Know Me? Poem by Danya Mashat

Hello, it's me
Do you know me?
Do you know who my father was?
What about my mother? Who was she?
my siblings?
Did you know them?
Do you know what our favorite color is? Or favorite food?
Did you know that we used to go to school;
ride our bikes and chase each other,
Our mother would make us something to eat
While our father went to work
We would come home to our mother's greeting smile
But now.. all we hear is her woeful wiles.
Does it matter?
Who I am..
I am a nameless person in an ageless body
I am the suffering of the people in Gaza
Do you know me now?
Does knowing my favorite color make any difference
Would it end my pain? .. my suffering
Would it save us?
I used to think if people knew us
Knew that we were humans too just like them
They would help us
We would be saved.
That was a seven year dream I had
I am awake now
I see what goes on in the world
I see mothers frantically looking through the rubble for their children
I see children who are burned, decapitated, blown up, raped and beaten
Would you be able to get to know them? The real them
Who we are matters not
What we are going through should
We are ageless, nameless people
We wanted to say Goodbye….