it’s never enough to simply exist as humans

lands get involved

between folds of skin & folds of a bill

it’s funny how money changes situations

& twists straight roads ahead to fit lie into truth

should you write the plea

to save a nation

have your rights forbidden

by rule of law

offered up as a “solution”

that sticks out prongs & stabs cement

fresh slabs

behind your back right at your neck

now you are stuck between the cold metal

the wall built keeps you out [keeps you in]

desert blooming through phosphorus gas

cleanses the soil of its indigenous hosts

through destruction above all else humans always

love to boast

launch hundreds of warheads

pillage & forage then

demand you atone

make amends & conjure a million miracles

thread the cosmos through a needle

sew the eye the hem of freedom

build the shapes of our nation’s dress

forget to live & live to forget

through it all truth laid bare

walls may be built only to crumble once again

Samah Serour Fadil

Afro-Palestinian writer, editor, and translator
Samah Fadil’s words explore indigenous feminisms and futurisms, featured in anthologies such as Beyond the Glittering World and Thyme Travellers. She served as content editor for the Black SWANA issue of Mizna, winner of the 2023 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. Her poem “prongs into the nation” won the Petty Propolis poetry contest and was featured in the Observed: Hypervisibility and Reclamation exhibit. Residing in Montréal, her work continues to interrogate themes of surveillance, safety, and the reclamation of narrative.