They Lied to You

They lied to you

When they said

They had stopped the genocide.

They lied to you.

I still hear the buzzing of nasty drones

Hovering over the grey sky,

Like hungry birds searching for another home.

They lied to you.

I witnessed my home collapse

Under the weight of heavy bombs,

Its walls falling like broken memories,

Its rooms swallowing the laughter

That once lived inside them.

They lied to you.

I hear the screams of widows

And orphaned toddlers,

Their trembling voices rising

From beneath the dust and rubble.

They lied to you

While they razed our homes,

One after another,

Until familiar streets

Became fields of concrete and ash.

They lied to you

As the horizon of destruction

Grows wider and wider,

While the grey sky carries

The smell of smoke and fear.

They lied to you

While they are killing us quietly,

While our names disappear beneath the rubble,

While our stories are buried with us,

And the world is told

That the killing has stopped.

Ahmed Miqdad is a poet from Gaza.