Towards the end, they both wore black only, just like you.

They both wore black for their husbands, men gone long before the women,
one went so fast I did not see him at all.

Helena was your height, wore glasses, tinted, her hair always wrapped tight
in a bun, and its length, I never knew.

Alice was taller but as time passed, her body slipped down,
lower to the ground, her back curving in on itself, unable to support a body,
even as frail as hers.

Helena was quiet, calling our names, she would go through the list
of daughters in the family, before reaching the one she wanted.

Alice commanded attention, even when her eyesight failed
and it meant reaching her bony hand out
and pulling us to her
not sure which grandchild she held onto.

Towards the end, Helena faltered, and went quiet, while my mother and I
were at the other end of the continent.
We were told days later, and I watched my mother
drop the phone, drop to the ground
and become a little girl again.

Towards the end, Alice’s sight and hearing and breathing went
in a hospital bed
surrounded by daughters, sons, grandchildren, great grandchildren,
I among them
hurting for my father, and his tears that would not fall.

I did not know either of them very well
raised far from the arms of two families
each on a different continent
and family for me
only meant a father, mother and sister

Aunts, uncles, cousins, all thousands of miles away
becoming friends and enemies only after my 18th birthday.

But you, standing in the street,
make me ache
for the grandmother

I did not have.

not for children or babies
old women who cannot run fast enough
to outrun
tonnes of steel

not for men who
had they turned
one degree,
would have seen
death so wide and so forceful
that there was no way to run
and hide

there are wounds that will not go away
broken bones that cannot heal
not when all that they hold
begins to fall out
and spill onto
the ground

not when a tank runs over a live body
and in 5 short seconds
what was once alive is
now
dead

we hope

because their bones
have bent in ways
we did not think possible

have cracked and proven brittle
easy to snap, to crush
like it was nothing.

Like it wasn’t a father who was dying
or a son who’s mother
would scream, hit her face, to feel pain
but feels nothing
nothing

knowing

that a tank
hundreds of thousands of pounds
of weight

fell, angonizingly slow,
covering an entire body
with its wheels.

No, bone should not break
that easily.

Hearts should not feel
cracked
like our chests have caved in
on themslves
and words come out

split in two

part word, part nothing that the human ear
can understand.

No, there are wounds here
that will never
heal

there is resolve here
that cannot be broken

the resolve of men and women
wills written
and ready

saying

we would rather die
for these streets, these cities,
these people

than to live
in ways where

life is worth
a cracked skull
under a heavy tank

and nothing

more.

She wrote this poem at a time when things seemed much more hopeful in Egypt. I’m watching it as a reminder.

قلبي موجوع عليكي يا مصر

There are prints of flowers and leaves
on a wall that has forgotten spring.

There are hands that hold
these feelings inside
of rushed 2 am confessions, that come to nothing,
and children’s names that go with us
to our graves.

There is more of emptiness
than anything else.

And no matter how you place your hands,
or how tightly your fingers
curl around the flesh of your stomach

there will always be this distance.

In it, we will place the things
that have fallen out of our reach.

Your stories of 1939, that were never true
even if they made us smile.
Crisp white table cloths and wine red napkins.
Conversations under shadowed wisps of strings that pull,
over the clink of near-empty glasses of chardonnay.

No,
we will forget.

We will forget what it felt like
to hold summer in our bellies.

And we will be empty
inside.

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Groups stood together discussing politics, the future of Egypt, their determination. They talked about the days past, they talked about the violence, and what was still to come. Groups sat inside makeshift tents, resting, probably in preparation for yet another night, where they were never sure what might happen. Others passed around sandwiches and bottles of water, and ate, while one man, a man who had lost two brothers to Mubarak’s men, recited poetry.

This day in particular is one that I will never forget. I spoke to a young man from Cairo. His parents thought that he was visiting a friend in Mohandessin. They were against the January 25 protests, and thought that the people in Tahrir were on a steady path of dragging the entire country into a complete state of turmoil. He lied to them about where he was going, and made his way down to Tahrir to show his support.

I spoke to an old Sa’idi man dressed in a gallabeya, a white turban, and a mustache that swept across his face in swirls of grey and white. His Sa’idi dialect was strong, and I struggled to understand each and every word, but understood when he said that Egypt’s future was in the hands of its youth, not old men who have nothing left to give.

And I spoke to a young man from Mansoura who had never been to Cairo. To him, Tahrir was Cairo. He didn’t look like could have been over 20. His t-shirt, which a week earlier was probably a bright shade of orange, was ripped and stained. I didn’t ask him what those stains were.

We spoke about the mood in the square, about how proud we were to be Egyptian, and I can’t remember how it came about, but he discovered that I was Christian. I don’t remember the details of the conversation. I don’t remember why it came up, but I remember very well, his reaction.

“I’ve never spoken to a Christian before,” he told me. I asked him why. He explained that there were no Christians in his neighbourhood. Here was an Egyptian who had no Christian friends, and probably knew nothing about our traditions or prayers. As we spoke, it seemed as though he was realizing that I was no different from him. And whatever preconceived notions he might have had were beginning to fall away.

Today, a military general made the statement, “There is no sectarian strife in Egypt. I know that because I have Christian friends.” That very sentence, the fact that he felt the need to make that statement, shows that there is something wrong.

The young man from Mansoura and I continued to speak that day for some time. We stood and watched a large crowd of protesters chant against Mubarak. And then we went our separate ways.

I never found out what his name was, but I only hope that the impression that I made on him was as strong as the one he made on me. I hope that, as Egypt is being dragged down this path of turmoil, not by protesters, but by the men at the helm of this country, that he remembers the young Coptic woman he spoke to in Tahrir. That he realizes that what happened in Maspiro on October 9th, is no different to what happened in Tahrir on February 2nd – that peaceful unarmed protesters were brutally and horrifically murdered.

On February 2nd, men rode in on horses and camels, whips and knives in hand. On October 9th, they rode instead, their deaf steel beasts, tanks that do not rear away from crowds, move forward and can’t be stopped, not for skin or bone or screams of pain. The protesters, families with their children in tow, marched in, calling out to God, and as the sun set on Cairo, more lives were lost on that one day than any other in the 18 day uprising.

The horrors of Maspiro are well documented and history will testify to what happened. Mina Daniel’s name is saved in the timeline of a country which is struggling to breathe. Mina was one of many who fought to breathe life back into Egypt. And he was brutally gunned down.

The image of Michael Mosaad laying on the floor of a hospital cannot be forgotten, next to him 3 other men who fell and did not get back up, one man, his face disfigured and bent in ways that you would think human bone shouldn’t bend. And his fiance Viviane Magdy, sat on the stone floor, held his hand, and refused to let go.

SCAF has painted a convenient picture with their version of the story. But history will not be kind to these men, and their story will be painted with the harsh strokes of men who would do anything to stay in power. They will be remembered for the blackest night Egypt saw, not just this year, but in decades.

And Mina and Michael, like Khaled Said and Ziad Bakir, and all those who came before, and will come after, they will be remembered for what they gave.  For the fact that they gave far too much, and would have had so much more to give. If they were given the chance. RIP.

and the world watched.

The world watched as we were called
traitors
and on television screens
in homes, doors locked refusing to let in
the truth,
men spit scorn into cameras
and women screamed into their phones
eyes and hearts full of rage
unable to understand
that Tahrir was theirs, for them,
while government eyes showed only what they wanted
us to see
the sun setting over the Nile

but all it would take, was the smallest turn of the head to the left
a glance from the corner of the eye
to show the haze of Cairo’s sun through tear gas,
to show men charging the street with only their bodies
met with police trucks running them down.

Newspapers wrote of unrest across the Mediterranean
pretending that this day that had begun in Cairo
was like any other.

But something had begun.

Men and women shook the earth
with their voices.

From north to south
bodies fell to the ground, hearts stopped beating
but in Tahrir, we held our heads high for them
moving away from the walls that, our whole lives
we had walked close to, hiding in the shadow
of conformity and fear

opened our chests to murder
opened our faces to rocks, our eyes to bullets
our minds to molotov fires thrown down onto our heads

and said

we are not afraid

because the fear of living with your face buried
in the soil of a land that can no longer feel
is nothing, nothing compared to
the fear of dying
without once having said

I am free.

(And then I’d have to go buy a few more cameras and lenses because I’d have so much shelf-space to fill)

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