Featured poet for May

Farewell

Farewell After a year of waiting,

I realized that you were never coming back.

And I realized, too,

that you were never buried.

You have no grave for me to visit.

So how am I supposed

to bear this?

We in Gaza

have no right to visit graves,

because we have no bodies,

because we have no graves,

because we have no farewell.

My mother learned of my brother’s martyrdom

from his clothes,

which we found by chance in the street,

covered with the marks of dogs.

Then she screamed:

“These are my son’s clothes.

I know them well

I used to wash them

with my own hands.”

Amera Attiya Abu Al-Husain

Amera Atiya Abu Alhusien, is a 21-year-old from the Gaza Strip, Palestine. She is a translation student and writer who believes in the power of language to convey truth and connect cultures. Amera writes to document reality and express the human experience, especially in difficult circumstances. She writes to remind the world that they are not just numbers, but people with voices and stories that deserve to be heard.

Amera contacted The Writing School Online and asked if we would share her work on the website. Her poem is below.