Omar Hamad | عُـمَـرْ 𓂆 @OmarHamadD

"You might wonder how someone living through a genocide could read all those books. But reading, once my refuge and habit, has become my escape from everything I live through. When I feel fear, I take shelter in books. When I feel hunger, I devour a novel. When I feel joy, I read a passage. At sunset and sunrise, I read—again and again and again—then I write.

Today, I celebrate my birthday with the books I’ve read this year. I have never found and will never find a companion more loyal and sincere than them.

June 19th—I was born in the green village “Beit Hanoun” among its simple people. Since God breathed awareness into my body and I began to think, all I saw around me was the green of the land and the black ink on paper. From that moment, I began consuming both the green and the ink. I never dared to write until God illuminated my insight, and I held my pen in my trembling left hand, brushing it against the paper and writing: “My eyes have not and will not fall from you.” Later that same year, I wrote: “My eyes longed to see you, so I plucked them out.” And between those two lines, I scattered countless letters into an absent soul.

I used to caress the letters, and they caressed me—until this genocide came. Now I find myself in a battle between me and the letters. Instead of writing with ink, I write in blood—about blood. My hand no longer trembles. Sorrow and blood silence every pulse."