We Run to Us

When the journalist Motaz 

was still in Gaza, 

in the neighborhood where 

he lived before the genocide 

displaced him,

the Israelis bombed his 

neighbor's building.

Motaz was running.

The street, a blur of rubble, 

careened with the camera 

bouncing on his chest.

Screams and shouts all around him.

Smoke and dust rising.

I could hear Motaz's breath 

ragged with adrenaline and fear.

I was sure that he ran from the 

explosions to stay alive.

But then I realized he was 

running toward them.

He was running toward them.

And other men were running 

toward the explosions too, and 

toward the bombed building, 

still smoking.

The next thing I saw: 

hands reaching out to dig 

reaching out to dig in the 

smoking rubble.

And another hand reaching up 

from underneath.

A single hand reaching.

If we want to survive and grow 

into any life worth living, 

we have to run toward each other.

We have to run to each other, 

in the midst of whatever bombing,

toward the hands that are reaching from

whatever rubble 

they find themselves 

buried under.