For You Page (Part 3)

@jack.powers drowns out protesters at Pride with a drum kit. She pauses for them to say “it’s time for  you to meet the Jesus of the Bible” then turns their hate into music. She smiles. The small crowd  whoops and laughs. A protester tries to yell over them. The love wins.  

Highland cows splash in their water trough. 

Florida passes the Don’t Say Gay bill. Spencer does the bravest thing they can do and flees the state  with their family. They start to feel safe. Thank god they are safe. 

Eugene Naumov, a Ukrainian man, opens his window to the siren outside. He picks up his guitar.  Plucks the strings. Finds a melody that sounds like saying I am still here. The eerie call of war meets  the gentle music of his resistance. It haunts me. It’s a slow dance at the end of the world. A gentle  snowfall of ash. A treasured shard of hope.  

Stella Young speaks to a room full of people about disability. How some might say the only disability  in life is a bad attitude. Stella says: “No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp.” 
Residents disrupt the New York State Assembly session to demand tenant rights by throwing paper  airplanes, folded stories of eviction dropping like fallen leaves. They land dull on the floor.  

The Atlanta City Council approves Cop City. 

The first Gen Z Congressperson, Maxwell Alejandro Frost, representing Florida, performs Misery Business on stage with Paramore. 

@anonymousally198 shares a clip of John Bradshaw leading an inner child meditation. He asks me to imagine walking away from that house, and toward the people who love me. In my mind, there is a  small crowd waiting. Queer people with signs and flags. Disabled folks with wheelchairs, crutches, and canes on the dirt road. Trans and nonbinary people with their arms around each other. They are cheering and singing and waiting to welcome me home.  

The parent of a trans child reads their suicide note: “I decided that I’m not living, or ever will. I’m just,  and always will be, merely surviving.” If only the world was more kind, this kid could have grown up.  
 

I post a video about what to say when your doctor stops at one normal test. It is seen by over 700,000  people. They share their stories in the comments: “It took me 10 years to get diagnosed with a pretty  common condition because docs didn’t want to test me further.” Me too, others say. Diabetes, PCOS,  
Endometriosis, Ulcerative Colitis, POTS, Scleroderma, EDS, vitamin deficiency, infection. I am  overwhelmed by the number of people with stories like mine. I can’t respond to them all. I want to hold them. To say I understand you. To clean and dress the wounds of their trauma.

 

To heal the damage of being ignored.  

The screen becomes a mirror, a portal. An intangible place for us to hold each other, if only for a  moment. If only in passing. If only to say I see you. I hear you. I am you. We are not forgotten here. In  this small corner of the Internet, we are understood.

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For You Page (Part 4) 

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The portal screen takes me to Gaza. I learn a few things. Symbols of Palestine: poppies, oranges,  strawberries, olive trees. The sacred art of embroidery. Keffiyehs. Watermelon slices. I learn about the  people who have been erased from history. I learn Israeli bombs scream before they kill you. That  children know they’ve survived if they hear the sound.  

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We are fighting human animals. It is easy to convince the world that brown children deserve to die.  Terrorism. Terrorist. A rallying call before the battle cry. The dinner bell before war. 

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In America, a white man fatally stabs a Palestinian boy 26 times. 

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Jewish activists all over the world say Never Again. Not in Our Name. They hoist a banner in Grand  Central Station, MOURN THE DEAD AND FIGHT LIKE HELL FOR THE LIVING. 

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I see art by Heba Zagout, a Palestinian artist killed with her two children in an Israeli airstrike on  October 13, 2023.  

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On October 14 I am told to put down my phone for the weekend for the sake of my mental health. 

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Dr. Nicole Truesdell says absolutely not. Says that ignoring what’s happening for the sake of our  comfort means that our comfort is more important than people’s lives. Says “this is another mechanism  of dehumanization alongside American propaganda, whether you know it or not.” Says “it is our  responsibility to know what is going on. It is our responsibility to deconstruct and also ask deeper  questions about how the West has allowed this to continue so long that a right-wing Prime Minister is  in charge of a state that is giving the okay to drop bombs on children.” 

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Jordan says no too. Says “Don’t look away. As we sit on the precipice of one of the largest  humanitarian crises in our younger generation, don’t stop looking . . . Complete disengagement, complete  walking away, is exactly how atrocities have happened to people again and again and again over  history.” 

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Auntie Andile responds to a comment that reads: Watching videos of people being murdered all day  isn’t going to help anyone. Inform yourself but do not harm yourself. “Do not infantilize me,” she says,  “I’m a grown ass woman. I know what I can take and what I can’t. And what I can’t take is to look  away. Sitting in privilege makes me uneasy, so I remain a witness.” 

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People show themselves calling their representatives. They give me scripts. I join them. Send emails,  make phone calls. While the line rings, Israel bombs the safe road to the south. Someone answers.  Someone sends a reply. The senator supports Israel. The senator is sad to see people dying. And by that  they mean the senator doesn’t really care. The senator will keep putting on his suit and going to work.  The senator will sit in rooms full of people in suits and do nothing but listen to each other talk. As I  read the email, as I type this even now, as you read this more people die.  

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“At what point does your ignorance become violent?”  

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Israel removes a pipeline supplying water to Gaza.

Asmaa Hussein reads me My Garden Over Gaza by Sarah Musa, illustrated by Saffia Bazlamit. It is a  story about generational wisdom. About the many hands that worked the land. About how they were  stolen, the land and the people. About a farm, a wall, and a rooftop garden. About drones and herbicide. About how to carry on. To grow again. To bear fruit. To nourish the seeds of the future.  

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Palestinian people cook me food. Musakhan, Mtabak, Ka’ak Al Qud, Maklouba, Taboon,

 

Hummus. Israel bombs Al-Ahli Hospital. This alone is a war crime. 

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Israel bombs an apartment building with people inside. This alone is a war crime. 

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Israel drops white phosphorus bombs on civilians. It burns their skin, their eyes. This alone is a war crime. \

 

Israel cuts the Internet, the electricity, the water, food. They bomb through the night. This alone is a war crime. 

 

Israel kills the entire family of prominent Palestinian journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh. PRESS vests  become targets. This alone is a war crime. 

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Rachel says “If one side can turn off all the electricity and Internet to the other side, maybe war isn’t  the right word.” 

 

Children in Congo mine cobalt and coltan with scraps of rebar. It makes them sick. We make them  slaves. The portal screen is a graveyard. 

 

“Just because you are allowed to be clueless doesn’t mean you have to be.” -@baayfree  

 

Lady Speech brings me more wisdom: “One of the most revolutionary things you can do is take care of yourself...Taking care of yourself does not mean you’re running away from what’s happening.” I take a  bath. Drink 20 ounces of water. Fill my belly with something to sustain me. I listen to music, but the  music does not move me. I search Palestinian artists. Bashar Murad, Nemahsis, Dana Salah. I let them  move me back to standing. Let the music take me where the portal screen can’t.  

 

A Congolese man sets himself on fire because the world as we know it only speaks the language of  blood.  

 

Dr. Nahla shows me Palestinian men pulling people from the rubble of fallen buildings. They are  singing. “The next time that they tell you that Arabs are all terrorists, I want you to remember this  video.” Men in orange high-vis vests, some in hard hats, sing and clap their hands. “Don’t ever forget  the men who are saving people from the rubble with literally no equipment, wearing slippers on top of  shrapnel and metal.”  

 

Israeli soldiers post thirst traps. Hair tutorials. They shake their guns in the air. “We have conquered the beach,” they say.  

 

The children of Gaza hold a press conference. They plead for our help in English. “Since the 7th of  October, we face extermination . . . They lie to the world that they kill the fighters, but they kill the people of Gaza. Their dreams and their future . . . We want to live as the other children live.” 

 

Israeli settlers pose on the ground while they brace for bombing I do not see. They take selfies. Make  faces. Laugh.  

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A father in Gaza collects small parts of his children in grocery bags.  

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Amahla releases a protest song. To all the souls who can’t be named, I hear your passion and feel your  pain. 

People fight censorship with the watermelon emoji. Much like they did in Palestine. How they carried the fruit like a flag. Like a sigil. Something to nourish them. Something that tastes like home. We carry  the fruit now too. Seeds, bullets, flesh, rind, bodies. 

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The floor of Al Shifa Hospital is slick with blood. 

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The air in Gaza is thick with ash. With flies. With the smell of decay. With disease.  “Hi, friends. It’s Bisan from Gaza. I’m still alive . . . "

 

Mahfodah Shtayyeh clings to an olive tree.  

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Protesters shut down the Brooklyn Bridge, chanting Israel bombs, USA pays. How many kids did you  kill today? 

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Protesters glue their hands to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade route.

 

Protesters throw their car keys off the San Francisco Bay Bridge. 

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Indigenous protesters in canoes block Naval ships carrying weapons. 

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Protesters are brutalized in front of the Rockefeller Christmas Tree.  

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In Gaza, the sirens have stopped. There are no more ambulances. There is no

 

more help.  Amahla sings If now is already too much, why isn’t now enough? 

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@alluringskullworld reminds me to not lose hope. “Almost every issue we face in society is going to  be an uphill battle. And regardless of what the problem is, there is one thing that you need to keep in  mind: do not succumb to the thoughts of impending doom . . . The second that you give up hope is the  second that you stop fighting.” 

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A photo of the damage from a Hamas rocket alongside a photo of the damage from an Israeli one. In  the first, people gather around the metal shell. It has dented the floor. In the second, an entire  neighborhood is razed to the ground. 

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I am not Muslim, but I make Du’a for the people of Palestine.  

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“Please don’t take her from me. My daughter doesn’t belong in a fridge. She never liked the cold.”

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“Don’t lie to me. I know my mother is dead. I knew it from her hair. They killed my mother, why?”  “I want her to get up and I’ll get her a gift if she does.”  

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“I feel like it would be better if I died with my mom. It is better. I’d rather not see this suffering and  pain that I’m witnessing. I mean, everyone I valued and loved is gone.” 

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“I am sorry I couldn’t protect you, my son. I couldn’t protect you. Don’t leave me.” “She is the soul of my soul.” 

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A cat sits on the chest of a dead man in the street. 

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A man carries a little girl. The back of her head has exploded. 

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A man carries an infant with no head 

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no arms 

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no legs 

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a hole where his stomach should be 

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a severed hand is held by the thumb 

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there is blood, dried and fresh 

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the world watches.  

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Taylor Swift is named TIME’s Person of the Year. 

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Motaz mourns his family through a camera lens.  

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The UN sends starving Gazan children toy food.  

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Amahla sings Why isn’t now enough? 

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The portal screen turns black. It is a mirror now. I am back in my kitchen. In my body. I am crying, or I have been crying, or I haven’t stopped crying. May they return. May they bring with them the keys to  their homes. The new keys to Jannah, to paradise, to heaven. May they be old and known and loved  when they get there. May Palestine be free of the occupation. May they tear down the apartheid walls.  May all the people who live there be at peace as they once were. May the land remember. The poppies.  The oranges. The strawberries. The olive trees. May the world learn the language of the living. May it listen.