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seventeen minutes

Channel Draw©


The Telegram videos flood in

kids in Rafah dancing on rubble,

mothers screaming joy not grief for once,

and I'm supposed to feel something

other than this sick familiarity

seventeen minutes of hope

before I remember

Oslo. Camp David. 

 

Every fucking

handshake photo op

while the bulldozers kept rolling

Abi texts from Jenin:

"Habibti, we celebrate today

because what else?"

his daughter's laugh crackling

through a phone screen

held together with Sellotape

 

while Israeli drones circle overhead

like mechanical vultures

on the clock

same BBC voice

that called Nelson a terrorist

now calls this "breakthrough"—

breakthrough, like the holes

blown through Gaza apartment blocks,

breakthrough, like the gaps

in Starmer's spine

(what spine?)

 

I watch Gazan kids

pull toys from the wreckage

during the "ceasefire"

and think

we've trained them

to grab what they can

between the bombs

whole generation raised on

borrowed time and

go-bags

 

A friend used to say

the British taught the world

how to smile whilst stabbing

and here's Starmer

shaking hands with war criminals,

calling it "progress"

whilst BAE Systems shareholders

celebrate quarterly profits

with champagne that costs more

than most people's mortgages

(priorities, right?)

 

The solidarity Signal groups

are buzzing, celebrate! dance!

and I want to,

I fucking want to,

but I've seen this film:

Act I: Ceasefire announced

Act II: Palestinians dare to hope

Act III: "Hamas broke the ceasefire"

(by breathing too loudly)

 

Flotilla hearts rot in Israeli concrete

for carrying baby formula

baby formula,

obviously the most dangerous substance

known to Israeli security

(after Palestinian children)

whilst Nelson Mandela’s statue

gets fresh flowers

from the same MPs

who vote for his grandson’s torture

 

with hands that've never

touched anything sharper

than a Waitrose cheese knife

the cognitive dissonance

tastes like copper pennies

and broken promises

 

in Liverpool rain

I dance anyway

because Layla from Gaza

sent a video of her daughter

laughing for the first time

in months,

proper laughing,

not the hollow sound

of trauma pretending it's fine,

and who am I

to not honour that

brief, bright fuck you

to despair?

 

but I also know

by morning BBC will report

the "violations"

a child flying a kite

too close to the fence

(terrorist kite, obviously),

a fisherman casting nets

in his own waters

(naval threat to Israeli security),

a grandmother hanging laundry

with "suspicious intent"

(Those bedsheets were definitely

up to something)

 

ceasefire

what a fucking joke

cease fire

but keep the siege,

cease fire

but keep the starvation,

cease fire

but keep the checkpoints,

the night raids,

the administrative detention,

the permit system

that makes breathing

require Israeli approval

(Form 4B-Gaza-Lung-Function,

processing time: when hell freezes over)

 

I choose the dancing children

not because I believe

in Trump’s phone calls

(He probably forgot Gaza exists

five minutes after hanging up)

or the EU's "deep concern"

or the UN's strongly worded letters

(so stern this time,

absolutely furious,

really quite miffed),

but because their joy

is the only honest currency

left in this economy of grief,

the only thing

that hasn't been

colonised yet

 

tomorrow the bombs resume

they always do

tonight Gaza breathes

stolen air

in stolen time

that's all we get,

that's all we've ever gotten:

the space between

one empire's exhale

and the next one's

inhale

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