GAZA’S HUNGER GAMES

If you live in Gaza,

hunger is your meat—

hunger for coexistence, for peace.

A banquet of fruitless craving.

Bombs rain down on hospitals,

on volunteers bringing food,

on those who own no weapons.

Listen. Children are whimpering—

hungry children chew leaves,

children wave arms and legs like sticks.

If you live in Gaza,

hunger is your banquet, day after day.

Empty bellies greet dawn with despair.

Babies die because famished mothers

have no milk. Both are  weeping.

Nations feed Gaza’s people bold words,

a feast of empty promises.

But all that’s real is hunger—

wielded like a broadsword,

cutting down emaciated neighbors.

Powerful men grapple for land

by withholding compassion–

until their own humanity wastes away.

Troops are reduced to stick figures:

us wiping out them.

In Gaza, both predators and prey

are slowly starving.

Starved souls wage war by starving the unwelcome.

If you live in Gaza,

hunger is your last meal.