Death Comes To Me Again, A Girl By Dorianne Laux

In the media, Gaza is an abstraction, a space designed for the violent death of an abstract people inhabiting it. This death comes at the hands of a natural, impersonal force—not one of the most powerful armies in the world propped up by the most powerful state in the world, with a government, and a people electing this government. It is a convenient framing, one that shifts guilt away from Israel. The destruction comes from above, and those who die are meant to die. All is as it should be. To that, we offer a correction: Gaza is not an abstraction. It is a shore and beaches and streets and markets and cities with names of flowers and fruits, not an abstraction but places and lives and people that are being bombed into oblivion.

At the Threshold of Humanity, by Karim Kattan.

I know it’s not much in the face of everything but I have been finding hope & resilience in palestinian poetry these past few weeks and I created a google drive file of poetry collections by palestinian poets that I will keep updating as I keep on reading. I also recommend checking out @fiercynn’s palestinian poets series for more poets + poetry available online

-Tareq Hajjaj, a journalist and writer from Gaza

Reposting from BreakThroughNews, 12/3/23:

“BREAKING: The Yemeni Armed Forces say that they struck two Israeli ships in the Red Sea, using missiles and drones. The US says one of its warships returned fire.

Yemen has pledged to block any Israeli ships from passing through the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea until the siege of Gaza ends.”

the saddest universe

the saddest universe is not the one where i love you but you do not love me.

the saddest universe is not the one where i love you and you love me but the gravity of fate tugs us apart.

the saddest universe is not even this one where i love you and you love me and we lose each other over and over and over and over and over again.

in the saddest universe we have never walked in the same place at the same time.

in the saddest universe i have never seen my eyes mirrored in yours and you have never felt your fingers brush against mine.

in all the infinite possibilities of time and space and fate this is a universe where i know the color of your eyes and the shape of your name on my lips and the echo of your voice in my bones.

and for that i am grateful to the kindness of this universe no matter how many times we must lose each other over and over and over and over and over again.

at least in this universe we have something to lose.

- by sylvie (j.p.)

Is the heir to the throne bothering you, Lord Tyland? HOUSE OF THE DRAGON — 2x01: A Son for a Son

Radio Romance by Mashrou' Leila