Respond to 2025: Five Friends Catch Up in the Group Chat

Five Friends Catch Up in the Group Chat

(Or it took 663 days to write this)

Isn’t this our third Eid in genocide / it’s Eid? / another day, another missed deadline / I am the worst mum, kids going to need therapy because of me / they bombed overnight — is your family ok? / this election, hey? / cancelled plans. again. / anyone else disassociating in a hole, with cake? / heads up, they’re Zionist for sure / I cried all afternoon in Al Aseel’s toilets / YES keep those receipts sis / they killed Anas / I don’t know if I can face anyone tonight / your Palestinian thobe was divine / is it just me, or are we being collectively sidelined? /  I’m making chicken soup for you all / shall we block everyone and run away together? / my love, thank you for the book / the flowers / the chocolate / I thought of you / It’s unbearable — this overwhelm, this grief / this year / all of it.

I wrote these lines in the afterglow of a poem by Amy Kay, a brief rupturing of the dissonance of our daily existence. Any glimmer of joy I might have felt was borrowed, foreign, fleeting, and a complete aching.

As an extension of the liberation struggle, Palestinian diaspora feelings of despair are real and valid, and the group chats have been a lifeline. But Gaza and the people of Gaza remain the story. There is no future without our resistance, our care, our community, our joy, our love.... That is to say, there is no future without Gaza in it.

Sara M. Saleh is an award-winning writer and human rights lawyer of Palestinian, Egyptian and Lebanese heritage. Her writing has been published across dozens of literary platforms and shared at festivals from Brooklyn to Beirut. Sara made history as the first poet to win the prestigious Peter Porter and the Judith Wright Poetry Prizes. Her debut novel, Songs for the Dead and the Living, and poetry collection, The Flirtation of Girls, received multiple prizes and shortlistings.