My full name is Baraa’h Qandeel. I’m 24 years old. I like to call myself a “multipotentialite”, that means I’m interested in many different things, and I try to do them all.
What I have is passion, passion for what life can offer, for what human beings are able to learn and create. I’ve been into languages and cultures since I was very young, I believe this is what led to choosing Translation and English Language as my major. I graduated in 2021. I then learned about marketing and worked in content writing, I have been learning Business Development skills lately, and hopefully, if I’m meant to stay alive, I’ll pursue a job in this field.
I have always been a people person, a top-notch extrovert, seeking to connect with people from different backgrounds and cultures to get to know different views of the world.
I love writing and from time to time I publish my prose and poetry in English and Arabic.
I love Gaza and my country Palestine as well, and I like talking about them.
I have a lot of goals and dreams to turn into reality, and I want to live to do so.
I’m not always keeping up. I have some faith and this is what’s helping me to hold on during this ongoing crisis. I somehow manage to distract myself by reading or rewatching some movies or anime episodes I have downloaded on my laptop a long time ago.
Writing is a healing process in these difficult days, I write when I’m overwhelmed, scared, tired. Something inside me urges writing today. Below is what I feel in a form of poetry.
Dark Blanks
With my heavy breaths
the heaviest ever
I’m laying on my bed
counting the hours
counting the nights
since the very start
of this living hell
Bomb after bomb
dropping on houses
echoing in my head
filling me with anger
and an despicable fear
draining my patience
killing my strength
and fuelling me with urge
to scratch my own eyes
out of this unbearable pain
running through my veins
I’m trying to be strong
I’m trying to persevere
but isn’t that itself inhumane?
Aren’t they killing my people?
and coldly demolishing homes,
And without any shame,
they kept showing off?
Massacre after massacre
And now on top of that,
I’m being asked to hold on?
Am I just an animal?
eat or you shall be eaten?
This is not what I live by
Wait! Am I living now?
Is this even a life?
I’m forced to sleep trembling
on each and every night
while they bomb us from the sky
like it is a stupid video game
I don’t know how to hold on
when there is no running water,
only bathes of blood
I used to know love
I used to know humanity
Now, I only know anger
I only know fear
I’m just losing my sanity
No need to kill me now
They’ve killed me many times
For each and every time
they killed a friend of mine
and killed an innocent child
For each and every moment
they took my safety away
They’ve killed me already
alongside with my house
I’m homeless for the second time
thanks to their hands
I don’t know how to survive this
I’m only mapping out
all their crimes on my body
and filling the blanks of my mind
with the darkest of their deeds
I’m becoming a walking memory
backing up all the sadness
all the destruction
all the madness
And I will not forgive
I will not forget
And now I’m so exhausted
that I can’t shed a single tear
nor give this poem an end
for our pain isn’t poetic
Not anymore!
Not this time!