Goodbye, War…
By Doha Kahlout
I will return without you, war—
I will cut my nails stained by the black of fire and by bitter alienation, and I will let down my hair, matted with seasalt, abandoning all the clothes suffused with the disappointments of the road, the wakeups on mornings of displacement, the evenings made sleepless by fear, and
in my bag, I will carry all my pending calls, placing them in the embrace of an answer, and I will pour out (washing each of my features one last time) all my sadness and anger, the words I forced myself to choke down, and, because of the taste of sorrow that’s seeped into my bones, I will boil all the cooking pots, and I will wash myself with the stubborn water of the north
I will return with nothing, so that the eyes of war will cease chasing me— I will cut (with all my unwarranted patience) the synonyms of longing from my tongue, and I will toss them to a wave that will not return— I will extinguish the flame of my tears on the shoulders of reunions with Azhar, Amal, Khaled, Nour, Baraa, Rahaf, and Faraj—
I will race under Gaza’s feet so that it might forgive me the sin of abandonment and the selfishness of survival, and, in this confrontation, I will know loss and helplessness and collapse, and, because I know how to cross the ocean, I will cross it, and every Gazan who bears in his chest the oppression of the prophets (yet with no miracle to save him) will cross it— for a year and many months, the sea swallowed our share of life and no staff could see our hand waving from behind the screens.
My beloved Gaza, we will return with nothing, and from you we will possess you, and we’ll know, and we’ll love, and we’ll hate, and we’ll defeat the numbers and return as human beings, the way you always loved us and wished us to be.
Tr. ArabLit
وداعاً أيتها الحرب..
سأعود دونكِ أيتها الحرب، سأقصُّ أظافري الملطخةَ بسوادِ النار والاغترابِ المُر، وأُطلقُ شعري المُجدّلَ بملحِ البحر، وأتركُ كلَّ ملابسي التي جرّت خيباتِ الطريقِ كلِّها واستيقظَتْ صباحَ النزوح ولم تنمْ مغربها خوفاً ، في الحقيبةِ سأحملُ كلَ نداءاتي العالقةَ وأضعُها في حِضنِ الإجابة، سأسكبُ -في آخرِ مرةٍ أغسلُ فيها ملامحي- كلَّ حزني وغضبي والكلماتِ التي ابتلعتُها قهراً، ولأن طعمَ الأسى انسلّ في العظامِ سأغلى كل أواني الطبخ، وأغسلني بماء الشمال العنيد.
سأعودُ دون شيء فلا حاجةَ لي بعيونٍ للحربِ تلاحقني، وسأقطعُ -بكل صبري غير المبرر- مرادفاتِ الشوق من لساني، وأرميها لموجةٍ لن تعود، وسأطفئُ لهيبَ الدمعِ على كتفِ لقاء أزهار وأمل وخالد ونور وبراء ورهف وفرج، سأندفعُ تحتَ أقدامِ غزة لتغفرَ لي خطيئةَ التركِ وأنانيةَ النجاة، وفي المواجهةِ سأعرفُ الخسارةَ والسقوطَ والعجزَ، ولأنني أعرفُ كيف أعبُر المحيط، سأعبرَه، ويعبرَه كلُّ غزيّ حملَ في صدرِه قهرَ الأنبياء دونَ معجزةٍ ينجو بها، عاماً وأشهر والبحرُ يبتلعُ حظَّنا من الحياةِ ولا عصا تبصرُ يدَنا الملوِّحةَ خلفَ الشاشات. حبيبتي غزة سنعودُ دون شيء ومنكِ سنمتلكُ، ونعرفُ،ونحبُ، ونكرهُ، سنهزِمُ الرقمَ ونعودُ إنساناً كما أحببتنا دوماً وفضّلتنا.
Doha Kahlout is a poet and teacher from Gaza. Her first collection of poems, Ashbah (“Similarities”), was published in 2018. She was selected for a residency at Reid Hall in Paris as part of the Displaced Artists Initiative, co-sponsored by the Columbia Global Center and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, but has not been able to take up her place since the Israeli invasion of Rafah and the closure of its border crossing in May 2024. Read more of her work in translation by Yasmine Seale at The Yale Review; translated by Katharine Halls, in Vittles magazine; or by Wiam El-Tamami as part of the And Still We Write collection.
Find Doha on Instagram @doha_kahlout and donate to Doha’s GoFundMe.
Photo: Marcin Monko, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.