In this piece from the Gaza Writers Matter group, Farah asks, “Do you really know me?”
Do you really know me?
You may think you know me. You see my calm features and my smile. You think my life is going well. But you do not know that behind that smile lies a story burdened with pain and sorrow, and a heart full of scars — that those calm features conceal a noise inside that never quiets.
The war left me facing a heavy reality I did not choose. Two years were enough to change everything in my life. In them, I lost more than I ever imagined a person could lose in an entire lifetime.
I lost my sense of safety, which I once believed was a basic right for every human being. I lost my passion, my dreams, my home. Each dark night took a piece of me away. I lost the joy of graduation.
I had dreamed of graduating amid celebrations and applause, of throwing my cap into a blue sky. I do not know why that sky was replaced with one of gray, and the ground beneath me turned into a heap of ashes. Smoke erased the outlines of any tomorrow I had imagined.
You do not truly know me, because you have never felt the weight of the emptiness left behind as my dreams fell one after another, nor the bitterness of the nights I cried until my tears ran dry.
But I am the girl who masters the art of pretending to be strong, of hiding her pain even as she stands on the edge of breaking.
I am the girl who, though the war stole so much from her, did not let it steal her will. The one who defies the circumstances that try to break her, still searching in the darkness for a glimmer of light.
So do you know me now?
I am not a stranger — I am you, if you were in my place.
I am the other face of humanity, the one that must be seen and heard, not ignored.
And if you do not feel pain for me, then know that you do not know me yet.
Debate for Peace 