FOR GAZA

If I Must Starve

A poem by Nour Abel Latif
July 22, 2025

If i must starve,

let it be with dignity in my childrens’s eyes,

not with my hands tied by silence.

Let the world witness

that I do not bow to the hungar

but stood, even as the sky emptied

and the earth closed her mouth.

If I must starve,

let it be while i still cradle my child’s hope,

not as a number lost in footnotes.

Let the sea carry my name 

to shores that forgot my people,

and let the wind whisper:

she fed love when bread was gone.

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30th July 2025

a silent weapon

we can never go back
it is too late
we are exposed
underbelly of humanity 
exposed again

the bare winter forest
fallen 
the ground too barren 
to bloom 
a spring

its glare blinds
some look away
some deny it 
the path is lost
for the seeing

she holds her dying child
her child   
our burden
our underbelly
exposed

air dropping palettes of leaves
rusty red to green 
It is too late
too weak for the gathering
she holds her dead child

Arteries of humanity are clogged
stents are denied
how do we grow it again 
tend it 
with inhumanity deep in us 

Colleen