Born in the rubble of Gaza

 

Iqbal Suleman

I was born in the rubble on October 8 2023

In the rubble I live

In the rubble I breathe

In the rubble I bathe

 

The rubble is my bathroom

The rubble is my bedroom

The rubble is my life

The rubble is my grave

 

The rubble is my school

The rubble is my mosque

The rubble is my museum

The rubble is my home

 

The rubble is my university

The rubble is my cemetery

The rubble is my identity

The rubble is me

 

My mammas body was blown apart

Now even I have no heart

I wish she could touch my ears

To soften the suffering cries that I hear

 

My papa too is gone

So is his book of poems

There’s nothing left of him

He lies beneath the rubble

 

Now I don’t have a mama

Now I don’t have a papa

Now I don’t have a brother

Now I don’t have a sister

 

Now I don’t have a name

I guess you can call me Rubble

Man, it is the only rightful name

When you living here in Gaza

 

Every little Muhammad

Had his baby brain blown to bits

Every little Fathima

Has had her baby body shred apart

 

As for me, I am Rubble

I get to live and I get to walk

You need me to tell my story

No one’s here from CNN or BBC

 

Lying on your couch, switch on the TV

With your remote, pizza and bottle of whisky

I am Rubble, not Muhammad or Ali

So relax now, you can believe me

 

I’m not Muslim, Arab or Palestinian

I am Rubble and hard as stone

I only believe what I see

I only know that I can see

 

Now if you will permit me

Let me tell you all that I can see

As you sip on your whisky

You don’t see what I see

 

I see thousands of Zionists Jews

From every part of the world

Come and join the Israeli army

To slaughter my people and me

 

I see every rich Western country

Give bombs, guns and money

To this genocide

Against my people and me

 

I see my house on fire

I see burning flesh

I see the fire crackle

With my papas bones

 

I see my people running

Every day from place to place

Terrified and trembling

From tent to tent between the bombing

 

There’s an eighty year old woman

Hungry and walking for miles

There’s a seven year old orphan

Crying and walking alone

 

There is blood on the floor

There is blood on the doors

I look up and I look down

I see blood all around

 

There’s the blood of the doctor

Who tried to save my mamma

There’s the blood of my neighbor

Who tried to find what’s left of papa

 

There’s the blood of my kindergarten teacher

And my baby sister Ayesha

There’s the blood of the hospital sister

And all the patients from Al Shifa

 

There’s the blood of the fireman

There wasn’t any water in his hose

There’s the blood of the cameraman

There are no nails on his toes

 

There’s the blood of the hungry

That’s dripping on the flour

There is the blood of the baby

Flowing four times an hour

 

There is blood on my hair

There is blood in the air

There is blood here and there

There is blood everywhere

 

It’s not just bloody Sunday

It’s bloody every day

It’s bloody every hour

It’s been bloody ten months and more

 

 

 

So what shall I call you?

Perhaps what you call yourself, a Zionist Jew

As you do all the things that you do

With support from your international crew

 

Tell me, please tell me you Zionist Jew

What did me or my people do to you?

That makes you hate me with hate vitriolic

Bleeding the bodies of babies with hate vampiric

 

Do tell me, please tell me you Zionist Jew

What did I ever do to you?

I was not there in Germany

Neither was my grandma or my granddaddy

 

Let me tell you, you Zionist Jew

I am Rubble only because of you

All that I will become

Is only because of you

 

I am the one

That will come to haunt you

I am the one

That will forever taunt you

 

I saw you, you Zionist Jew

Laughing while you blew up a mosque

I say you, you Zionist Jew

Laughing while you shot them dead

 

I saw you, you Zionist Jew

Mocking a mother crying over her child

I saw you, you Zionist Jew

Mocking us as we starved to death

 

I saw you, you Zionist Jew

Shooting those hungry people

Desperately waiting in the queue

While their blood mixed with flour too

 

I saw you, you Zionist Jew

Kill a man and dance with joy

And go back to pump

Seven more bullets into his dead body

 

I saw you, you Zionist Jew

And what you did to our little Hind

I can still hear your bullets firing

I can still hear her terrified crying

 

I saw you, you Zionist Jew

Strip my people naked

The old, the young, the mentally handicapped

And the limping and disabled too

 

I saw you, you Zionist Jew

Talk about your right to torture

Speaking in the Knesset

Arguing about your right to rape

 

Today I saw you Zionist Jew

During the Fajr Morning Prayer

Commit an atrocious massacre

In a school where women and children shelter

 

I see rubble

With every gaze I take

I feel rubble

With every step I take

I see many

Who are just like me

No mummy, no daddy

Just Rubble

 

I don’t want your pity

Or sympathy

I don’t want your money

I have dignity

 

What do you think of me?

You think I have no dignity

You think you can buy my soul

You think you can erase my history

 

So stick your shekels and dollars

Up your ass

And save your crocodile tears

For the Oscars

 

I am the rubble of Gaza

You can’t kill me

I am the rubble of Gaza

I will free me

 

I am rubble

I have felt every pain that can be felt

I am rubble

I know and you know who made me

 

I am rubble

I will not forget who made me

I am rubble

You will forever remember me

 

I am not ever going, going away

I am not leaving

I am not running

I am rubble, I am here to stay

 

Come and get me if you have the guts

Maybe I’ll get you first

You will have to do what you did to my daddy

I am not leaving, I am not running

 

Unlike my daddy

I don’t have a pen

Unlike my daddy

I know that you don’t listen to words

 

It is our destiny

You and me, to meet one day

It’s either you or me

Until we are all free

 

Will I grow to be like my daddy?

Writing poetry

Nah, I want to be like you

And speak like you

 

Poetry is not the language you listen to

Do you, you Zionist Jew?

I wonder if I can learn to talk, talk like you

And speak to you like you do, Zionist Jew

 

You have not spoken to me

With words or poetry

You have only spoken to me

With guns and bombs bloody

 

I am only rubble

I own nothing

I have no family

There’s nothing that can hurt me

 

I’m not afraid of you

In your Merkava

You are afraid of me

In the rubble and you should be

 

You are the killer of my mummy

You are the killer of my daddy

You broke the legs of my brother baby

You crushed the skulls of my sister baby

 

As you celebrate my blood today

Remember, there is a tomorrow

Remember too, I will not forget

All that you did today

 

I like that refrain, never again

Never again will I let you do

What you did today

And what you did yesterday

 

Ten of thousands of babies screams echo

Here beneath the rubble

The tears of tens of thousands of mothers too

Flow here beneath the rubble

 

All that the media tried to hide

About your horrific genocide

Is written in the rubble

Forever echoing in the rubble

 

The truth of genocide is written

Here beneath the rubble

And how the world allowed this to happen

Is written in the rubble

 

You talking about the day after

And saying you sorry later

From the comfort of your city

And the masks of feigned pity

 

Where will you run to, you Zionist Jew?

Who will you call oh Zionist Jew?

Tomorrow as I rise from the rubble

And bring you too in the rubble

 

Will Uncle Sam send his soldiers to protect you?

From me and my people oh Zionist Jew

Will the Arabs send their soldiers to protect you?

From my rage and resistance oh Zionist Jew

 

Whether it be a cowboy Yankee

Or an Arab mercenary

Know for certain oh Zionist Jew

Rubble teaches me to identify me enemy