this war will never end

This war will never end; it tortures us every moment, as if even time

itself has been taken hostage!

I need to feel. I need to speak my truth about what this does to me. I want to feel

alive again. I want my pain to be felt. I need to Scream it out.

I need to be seen as human, not less, not more. A human who feels a flicker of

hope, who has a safe home. A human who can love.

I need to stay aware of my pain, to hold it in my soul until either it or I am gone. I

need to survive, alone, if I must so that the pain is not merely endured, but fully

felt and truly understood, even if only by me. I am human, and I will never

accept being treated as anything less, no matter how hard they try to dehumanize

me, no matter how loudly the world's monstrous humans remain silent while

they do.

I will die trying to hold onto my humanity and my dignity.

My family is the most deserving in the world of a decent life, of

peace. They are kind, gentle, supportive, loving, and dignified ,

and they deserve so much better than this. I need them to survive.

But how can I ever be sure they will? I wish I knew everything, so

I could shield them from every danger. I cannot bear the thought

of losing even one of them, or seeing them hurt in any way. At

times, I wish I could hide them on another planet, far from all this

cruelty, because they don't deserve a single second of this suffering,

let alone the horrors it brings. They don't deserve fear, or pain,

or even weariness. My family is the very best of humanity, and they

deserve to live in peace.

My sister Raghad said: "I heard them on the news saying the war hasn't even begun

yet.  And my mother looked at me with despair and said: "Ali, try to leave here in any

way you can."

I knew that one of my colleagues had finally managed to leave, and I could have

gone with him. But I couldn't bring myself to do it.

The world says my family deserves life. I say they deserve every peaceful feeling a

human being could ever know.

And my mother keeps repeating: "This war will never end."

So I answer them: How can I go searching for life, after all this death, and far

away from you?

I will not do it. Life is forbidden to while genocide rages. These days are the

most terrifying and the most unbearable, yet I was not created to surrender. I was

made to resist, to endure, to fight; whether it leads to life or to death.

I will hold on to what I have, and I will fight to save what I can, for as long as I

can.