Are you listening to me?

Are you listening to me?
I always do.
I’m feeling weird.
Tell me more.
Like falling in love. Like butterflies and sadness.
Well do you like it?
I can’t.
Why?
Because I don’t know what it is.
I wish I could help you.

Did you see those walls?
Yes, they were beautiful.
Beautiful?
Didn’t you see the colors and the green fields and trees?
I wish I could.
Look harder.
All I see is walls and pill box sniper towers.
Can’t you imagine if it were…
True? That those weren’t just paintings? If only
You could imagine hard enough to make your dreams real

Maybe your stomach is upset.
I don’t think so.
Maybe the oppression you have seen makes you a little sick?
Maybe.
I appreciate you being here. Do you know that?
It’s not enough.
It’s all you have. All that can be.
I could learn to live with you. Share your pain and love you.
You know that can’t be.
But my stomach tells me I want it to be true.

Palestine.
Yes?
Where is there hope?
There is hope in the struggle.
Yes, but it feels more like sadness.
To you.
What does it feel like to you?
Like a wonderful dream that can’t be. Like beautiful pictures on the wall of my cage.
Well at least there’s that. At least the hope of frustration. There is beauty in that.
At least. But then…

Sometimes I wonder.
Wonder what?
Wonder what it would be like.
It?
Freedom.
You have it.
But for you.
Yes, I wonder about that too.
Do you ever cry?
Never.

How’s your stomach?
It hurts. Well it feels empty and dizzy.
I know what you mean.