For a year now
the cassette tape
has been played
over and over again.

We wake up
and with a swig
of loss
of death
and some tears
we swallow a pill of hope.

We follow a path
winding back and forth like a children’s swing –
long
and exhausting,
a path we know for sure
will end in a fall into
the mud of death.

Many times
we tried
to sew up the holes
that were pierced in our hearts
then we realized
our hearts have become sieves.
The pebbles of death
the tears of sadness
and the heavy memories
are too big to leak out.

by Asmaa Dwaima