For Rachel

*****For Rachel Corrie****
Rahmatullah 'Alayk

It’s gotten to the point where I just don’t understand
I cannot comprehend how people still defend
This apartheid and injustice

Do people not know what’s going on?
That we give 23 million a day to sustain their bombs
That Americans are so focused on the security threat in Iran
That they don’t even bother to hear the truth anymore

Tell me. Please explain.
How can you cry for the machine gun and not the Palestinian?
Everyday these people suffer violent cruelty and lose loved ones

You can forget the religious debate you’re about to use
I’m talking about the unreported abuse that is ignored by our news.
The basic human right violations that are disregarded and inadvertently supported by Americans and her government.
That its own citizens go without protection

Rachel Corrie. Do you remember her?
The non-violent peace activist who was murdered
Today’s her martyrdom’s 10-year anniversary.
Her sacrifice breathes as a living memory.
Of the injustice and racist ridiculousness that is so openly practiced.

For all the martyrs the ones who have been murdered
For the collateral damage, the human shields.
The exploitation and abuse, for all the scars that will never heal

The truth, your sacrifice will be heard.
Because when people start to listen
When people begin to care
About humans as humans
When our ignorance and culture of being unaware ends.
Your death would have been for something.

For You

Ive been doing this for you.
Pursuing all of these opportunities
All the ones that weren’t offered to you

You are my drive my inspiration.
You compel me. I must be your vindication.

Because if I don’t that’s selfish.
I know what it is to be blessed.
I have seen the struggle, the fights, the defeat of the rest.

I’ve been doing this for you.

You could have been a doctor.
Maybe a painter. A dancer.
A political campaigner.

But you were given cards
Not told the game
No matter the rules, youre beat
no how many times you deal again
you will always lose.
It is all in vain

So I’ve been doing this for you.

I know you are looking at me.
Supporting me always.
Giving me strength and love
Til the end of my days

Because if I were you and your were me
You’d be taking advantage of every opportunity
We have the same hunger
We have the same drive

The only difference is one of us has been deprived.

And that is why I am doing all of this for you.

Freedom of Speech

They denied me my freedom of speech
Words I didn’t even get the chance to speak
But I guess my Arab education.
Makes me a threat to national security.
So much for the only democracy
Functioning in the Middle East

State funded racism.
Another word for Zionism
But don’t you know it’s the same thing as anti-Semitism?
That both ideas both practices call for the complete separation.
The denial of integration.
The foundation of the Jewish nation

Those ghettos in Germany
Are now settlements in Jenin.
The power is separating them based on the Hebrew ethnicity
Our Jewish brothers and sisters are again separated from the rest of society

The refusal of co-existence.
The suppression of all resistance

I am not anti-Semitic nor am I a Zionist
I’m what we call a humanist
A person who believes that all people have the right to exist
I am the opposite of a separatist

These are the words that I wanted to speak
When they isolated, interrogated
When they detained me and denied me my entry
Telling me that they didn’t believe
Telling me I was constantly changing my story

And as they stamped and labeled me
A threat to national security
They told me they were sorry.

But it wasn’t a real apology.
These were the words they were trained to speak
What they’re taught to say while serving in the military
In the only democracy
Functioning in the Middle East.

Long live freedom of speech.