it is my birthday today. as a gift to me, tell someone you know about palestine, but don’t just tell them about our death. tell them about our life, the way we crowd around to flip the maqlooba, the insistence that someone else eats first, the tatreez we’ve woven into the fabric of our history, tell them about the soap from nablus, the oranges from yafa, the olive oil. tell them about our poetry, our art, our folksongs. tell them that we were, and still are, human beings who bore witness to the worst parts of humanity but searched for compassion anyway.







