‘My body at night rebels from all the deaths and anger. I drip sweat. I wake to my sweat like a waterfall on my body and I smell death.’ by Majd Musleh

55. I smelled death every time at school when I had to answer my friends who asked about my dad. I smelled death because my father no longer exists; my father is a martyr. I tasted it the day our first-grade teacher asked us what our parents do? I said my mom is a beautiful strong doctor but my dad, but my dad whom I don’t remember… He was martyred two years after my birth. I smelled it with every shocked, curious look of pity on the other students’ faces.
57. But I was too young to understand what that smell and taste in my mouth was until recently during the ongoing genocide which uncovered the truth for me, that this smell was and is the smell of death. The smell is choking me like locked tears in my eyes… like death from a missile strike.