Morning Scroll

6:30 a.m.
I wake up to a screen.
The first thing I see
is children
who will not see another dawn.
Gaza breathes breathlessly,
a father digging with bare hands,
a mother clutching a cloth
that once carried milk, now dust.
I read their poets.
Their words carry centuries,
I carry excuses.
I put down the phone.
My dogs leap;
Their hunger is for play.
They do not know borders.
I laugh,
I bend and leash them gently,
I am free to walk anywhere.
Back home—
I tell the cook what goes in the salad.
The news scrolls on in another tab:
Children waiting for bread.
I eat boiled eggs;
They starve.
Laptop open,
AI listens to my thoughts.
LinkedIn blinks
with silence.
I curse their silence,
then hide in mine.
Work is not for Palestine,
Work is for invoices.
This too is complicity.
I read again.
Poets from the camps,
poets from the rubble.
They give me metaphors
I do not deserve.
I repost about the men and women on boats,
their sails paper-thin,
Their courage is louder than the states.
I see leaders rehearse
the same rehearsed blame of October Seven,
Afternoon:
I sleep.
Dreamless.
A betrayal.
Evening:
I call loved ones,
family warm against distance.
We worry about their country,
I watch Netflix
and order food.
I avoid that burger place—
Boycott stamped on conscience.
I choose local,
but let Cola fizz in my throat.
Convenience tastes the same everywhere.
At night,
anger rises like smoke.
I speak to my partner
about the world's collapse.
I sound like someone
writing footnotes to grief.
My dogs rescue me,
their mouths open in joy,
their eyes never haunted.
I go back to doom scrolling,
they talk about Gen Z revolution,
Young ones refuse fascism,
with blood stitched on their seams.
I am proud,
and ashamed.
Their fire burns clean,
mine smoulders,
smoke hidden in the throat.
Here—
I cannot name the crimes
in my own streets.
Fear tightens my tongue.
We know what silence buys us.
Still, gratitude stains me.
I curse capitalism,
but count my shares.
I watch the green arrows rise,
imagine futures
where money grows
while bodies shrink in rubble.
Before sleep,
I book a spa for my dogs.
Luxury wrapped in fur.
The screen pulls me back
to Palestine.
The last reel cuts into me—
a child carried on a broken door—
then a flick of the thumb:
a comic mocking capitalism,
Free Palestine, he says,
I love him for this, and
for flying business class to packed houses.
I sleep.
Tomorrow, 6:30 will come,
and I will wake again,
knowing,
not knowing,
knowing too well.