Phalapoem editor, 09/02/2025
(Scene: A quiet, moonlit night in a devastated Palestinian street. Mo’ath Amarnih, newly released from an Israeli prison, sits on a crumbling wall. His face is gaunt, his body frail, and his prosthetic eye reflects the dim glow of the streetlights. He shivers, not from the cold, but from the memories that refuse to leave him. Handala, the eternal 10-year-old Palestinian boy with his back turned, appears beside him, silent but listening.)
Handala: (softly) Mo’ath, you made it out.
Mo’ath: (bitter chuckle) Out? Am I out, Handala? My body walks these streets, but my soul is still shackled in that cell. I still feel the chains on my wrists, the boots on my ribs, the hunger gnawing at my insides. I hear the screams—theirs and mine.
Handala: I have seen many leave, but they never truly escape. They carry the prison with them. What did they do to you?
Mo’ath: What didn’t they do? They starved us, beat us until our bones felt like dust. They stripped us of our dignity, of our names, of our very humanity. They made us drink water from toilets like animals. They laughed as they smeared our wounds with dirt, as they watched our bodies shrivel. And when the scabies spread, they let it fester, let us scratch until we bled.
Handala: They think they can break you.
Mo’ath: (looking away) They have. My mother wept when she saw me, but I couldn’t even let her touch me. “Stay away,” I told her. I don’t know what filth they left inside me, what disease still crawls beneath my skin. Do you know what it feels like to fear your own mother’s embrace?
Handala: I know what it means to be robbed of love, to be turned into a shadow of yourself.
Mo’ath: They did worse than just starve us. They laughed as they tortured us. They violated us in ways I cannot speak of. Grown men wept like children, praying for death that never came. And they watched. They enjoyed it, Handala. They enjoyed it.
(Silence. The wind carries the distant sound of gunfire. Mo’ath closes his eyes, trying to push the memories away.)
Handala: They think pain will make you forget why you fight.
Mo’ath: (whispers) But it only carves it deeper into my bones.
Handala: And yet, you still speak. You still stand.
Mo’ath: What choice do I have? If I stay silent, they win. If I give up, they win. So I speak, even if my voice shakes. I walk, even if my legs barely hold me. But Handala… I am so tired.
Handala: You are tired, but you are not alone.
Mo’ath: Then tell me, Handala… when does it end?
Handala: When the land is free, when the prisoners return home without shackles, when the children no longer have to carry their fathers’ burdens.
Mo’ath: Will I live to see it?
Handala: (pauses) I don’t know. But even if you don’t, your voice will. Your suffering will not be forgotten.
Mo’ath: Then promise me one thing.
Handala: Anything.
Mo’ath: Never stop turning your back on this world until it finally sees us. Until it finally listens.
Handala: (nods) I never have. And I never will.
(Mo’ath exhales, a breath that feels like the weight of centuries. The night stretches on, but somewhere in the darkness, a new dawn waits.)