“To the Soldier Who Points a Gun at Me”

You think I’m here to die.
You think that’s all we know how to do—
bleed, bury, break.

But listen.

I grow things.
Tomatoes in rusted cans.
Hope in children who don’t know what the word means yet.
I build—walls, stories, mornings.
I fix roofs with one hand and hold my daughter’s hand with the other.

And you?
You carry a gun like it’s your purpose.
But I’ve seen men become ghosts
long before the trigger is pulled.

You call this land a threat.
I call it history .
The call to prayer. The school bell.
The pot of lentils boiling over.

Don’t mistake my softness for surrender.
I don’t need to shout to be strong.
The fig tree in my yard
has stood through three wars
without raising its voice.

You—
with your steel and fear,
your borrowed power—
you patrol streets looking for danger
and miss the beauty flowering between the cracks.

You fear death.
I fear forgetting how to live.

So if you shoot,
know this:
I wasn’t born to hate.
But I won’t vanish to make you comfortable.
I won’t flinch so you can sleep easier.

I am not your victim.
I am not your enemy.
I am the reminder
that even under occupation,
a man can love too fiercely to be erased.

• Sameh Shahrouj

H/T Cadfa (Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association)

/HT #FilmsForAction FB account
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