Qahr

Let me tell you about Qahr. 
A word not in my mother tongue, 
It doesn't roll off my tongue easily 
Yet the taste is quite the familiar one. 
They say if you take the largest pot. 
Pour a pitcher full of anguish, despair and oppression, 
Let it simmer, burn it in high heat 
For seven decades and five, 
That's how you shall be served Qahr, 
A dish so bitter, from a pot that never ends. 
Qahr sounds like the buzz of Zannanah
Drones that never quiet in an occupied sky, 
Where the children are unfamiliar with silence, 
Afforded a sound sleep only in death.
Qahr is in your phone screen, 
Lingering like second hand smoke, 
Settling in your conscience as you live your 9 to 5, 
Suffocating from the ashes that you can't touch.
Qahr takes the shape of legs, 
Dangling like branches, 
A family crushed under the rubble, 
Together in life, together in death. 
Qahr takes the shape of a mother's hand
Smeared in her child's blood, 
It resides in her refusal to wash it off, 
For it is the last sign of her child (her last treasure). 
Qahr tastes like an unopened packet of biscuit, 
A father's last gift to his child, 
as he tenderly places it in a limp hand, 
It is in "Dear, eat this in heaven."
It's in the single earring pinned to a grandfather's pocket,
Soul of his soul,
Who will never open her eyes, 
It's in every name scribbled on a white shroud, 
Some with no name. 
Qahr takes the shape of everyday items, 
Things you will never see the same anymore–
It's in plastic bags–in green, blue and white,
As a father lifts them up in the sky, 
A small forearm peeking out from one, 
A leg from the other,  
His child in pieces. 
Qahr is in red quilts with flower prints,
The ones you use in a winter night,
But now their purpose is rather different, 
As they carry mangled limbs, 
The aftermath of an airstrike. 
It's in ball point pens and markers,
Children writing their names on hands and feet,
It's in every tortured wail of a young man,
Hands desperately digging through rubble,
Clinging to the hope to find life underneath. 
It is in the destroyed whiteboards in hospitals,
Crumpled like a discarded paper,
Smudged ink, a doctor's last words, 
"We did what we could, remember us." 
Press vests stained scarlet, 
One after another,
A graveyard of children, 
Twitter obituaries typed in dying breath, 
A timeline full of ghosts,
Never ending list of martyrs,
As the world watches in silence. 
Qahr is when truth is unheard, 
Slaughter endorsed, 
It's in the dance of a cruel soldier
On the wreckage of a destroyed city.
Qahr hides in words like "conflict",
Spewed by the Empire's stenographers,
Killed versus Dead,
Hostages versus Criminals,
Attack versus Blasts, 
Words wielded to dehumanise, 
Qahr is in every new acronym
WCNSF
"Wounded Child, No Surviving Family"
Qahr is when rage and grief too, are privileges.
Qahr rains with white phosphorus, 
Burning into a child's skin, 
Woven around every stolen limb,
Death certificate issued before being named. 
It waits with the lines of trucks carrying aid,
Stuck outside the border, 
It's in tent scrap with period stain,
In every amputation (without anaesthesia). 
In every single bite of bread, 
Eaten only with salt,
The only meal of the day, 
In every sip of sewage water, 
Pouring down a parched throat, 
That's the taste of Qahr. 
It's in the blood stained keffiyeh,
Press conference in a mountain of the dead, 
Held by doctors and children,
Using a foreign tongue, 
Begging to be seen, to be believed, 
For some lives are more precious than others it seems. 
It's in razed fields, desecrated corpses,
Bombed kindergarten and churches,
Star branded on skin, in burnt olive trees.
Music award shows outweighing 
Handcuffed remains in execution grounds,
Applause drowning the gunshots, 
Qahr is silent. Qahr is loud. 
(To suffocate, endure, burn and drown)
Dear listener, 
Once again I ask,
Have you heard of Qahr? 
Do you know what it looks like?

Tiasha Idrak is submerging in her own ocean of thoughts. She reads, writes, doodles and daydreams most of the time.