SHARI MALULEKE

I've been reflecting on death a lot lately
Wondering about my last breath
Reflecting
63 000
Reflecting on my 24th birthday
And how the world runs parallel to others
Destruction does not fully convey
The blood spilling on decimated olive trees
Reflecting on my 24th birthday
And the graves of children in Gaza who never made 24
I am so confused God?
If its Israel’s land, then why do they have to pry, wrench and lacerate to have it?
I am so confused God?
Are you a worse dictator than Netanyahu?
You must be.
You care more for the sins of sex and homosexuality
Then the gashes left in Palestinian hearts, homes and bodies.
I am confused God?
At 63 000
I am furious God
At 77 years
It smells like death
What great sins have Palestinians committed to deserve Genocide?
What sins were so great?
God the powers that be have too much power and that includes you
For a force that is omnipotent and omnipresent, you are quite omnisilent
Apathetic

I know its not God’s fault
God has feared what he has created
The parallels
I do not wake up to gunshot wounds to the head or the decimation of my entire family.
I am 24 and all I can do is write this poem.
Is this Israel’s great sacrifice?
Is God a sadist?
Does he like suffering and pain?
Are humans God? I can't tell the difference in power anymore.
How selfish of politicians deciding to be God
To decide whose life is worth saving
As I get older,
I realise righteousness
Is an empty vessel
A rusted can that echoes
It’s not God’s fault
Nor the devil’s
This is too nefarious
That Satan himself covers his eyes, whimpers at each bomb and prays for a cleanse.
Maybe that’s why Jesus hasn't come back.
The human ego has morphed into something
Venomous
Pernicious 
Acrimonious 
With each bomb, the cracks widen and Satan fears how close he is to the real hell.
I am sorry God. I know it’s not your fault
Israel keeps misusing your name
I know you are too afraid God, of the vapid creatures you have made.
God, the gospel is deafening.
The holy word sounds like richochets
The sacred like bullets
The sacrilege
The reverence resembles dislodged limbs on our walls
We are damned
Casings
I know it’s not God’s fault

Sometimes I fear humans more than God.
Netanyahu 
Biden
Sunak
Macron 
Scholz
Hyenas. Sniffing around the carcus of a land that was never theirs.
I hope ghosts haunt them.
I hope the inhumanity of their crimes catches up to them
And the screams of Palestinians spiral them into madness
Macbeth.
The king must lose it all.
God I know it’s not your fault.
You are afraid of what you have created.