The moon
Takes note
Remembers
The sun
Boisterous, hopeful thing
Is unbothered.
For once
Let us dance together
Under the sun
Plant sweeter grapes
Grow stronger grains
We'll let the moon
Keep her records
The times our vineyards were barren
Our fields dry and cracked
And one day, we'll gather together
Eat good bread dipped in olive oil
Eat sweet, cool grapes
And read, but the
Pangs of our hunger
Will be too distant anymore to hurt us.
When I hear you say,
That "Zionism is Terrorism"
I understand:
You want me to hate myself for
The crime of existing. You
Want me to apologise for the
Crimes of your ancestors.
I'm a betrayal; an indictment of your
White Guilt
I'm your scapegoat
How dare I refuse to comply?
Thursdays are bad.
It's on Thursdays, I do my shot, so it's like I get PMDD every week, which is particularly strong on Thursdays.
This particular Thursday marks one year since my partner passed, and is two days before what would have been our 19th anniversary.
On this particular Thursday, 1,538 beloved members of my family have been murdered since 7 October, and so much of the world doesn't seem to care at all.
On this particular Saturday, I've received my third Facebook restriction for talking about this fact.
On this particular Thursday, I'm tired.
On this particular Thursday, I badly want to rest.
On this particular Thursday, I went and took inventory of the pills I've squirreled away, or rather, I held the amber, plastic bottles in my hand and read their labels; my late father's Oxycodone, and my own amassed fortune of Alprazolam. It was comforting, but
On this particular Thursday, I quickly put them away, lest I forget to resist my own hand.
On this particular Thursday, I'd promised myself I'd do the dishes piling up in the sink, make the bed, and put away the laundry, so that I could get to the rest of the laundry that I desperately need to do, but I've done none of this.
Instead
On this particular Thursday, I'm going back to bed.
Maybe sleep will- at least for a few hours, calm this empty ache that's for so long been eating me like a cancer.
From time to time, I find myself suffused with a deep longing to feel closer to my Judaism.
Tonight, I dug out an old, pocket-sized sefer tehillim, put it into a blue, velvet pouch, and placed it in the army green satchel that's recently, for reasons of practicality, supplanted my handbag.
I searched through my dusty, disordered bookshelf for an old friend in A B Yehoshua, couldn't find it, and settled on a beaten up second (or third? ) hand copy of Amos Oz's "My Michael", purchased at Dani Books on Ibn Yisrael on a bored, rainy, winter afternoon in Jerusalem. It now sits beside me on the bed. I may or may not re-read it, but that's not the point; it's a friend.
I resolved to say the Shema before sleep, and sought out Shoah documentaries on YouTube, to put on after the Shlomo Artzi concert to which I'm currently listening.
I know the images and stories will only intensify the painful feelings of trauma I'm currently experiencing, along with the rest of klal am yisrael, which, right now, is exactly the point. This, too, is a deep part of my Judaism.
My Judaism, molded on both sides of the sea (to paraphrase Achinoam Nini), is Friday night candles and dinner with my family (when they were alive,) before going out with friends; it's Shlomo Artzi, Amos Oz, Kavveret and Chumos, Kasha varnishkes, Bamba, and mezuzot on every door whose klafei have never once been checked. It's the occasional bracha when I think of it, and my collection of magnei David that always make me feel powerful when I wear them.
It's the stories my parents and grandparents told me that live in me in softened, pink hues, with rough edges so sharp they still cut deep.
It's so much of the trauma I, and my parents, and their parents, and so on, "midor ledor" have had woven into every cell of our being. The trauma is important, you see. It is the ner tamid that burns forever and keeps us warm in this cold world.
It's the scab that never heals, that at times, like now, I pick, just to see the blood.
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