Forgive Us (A Meditation in a Time of Genocide) – A Poem

By Roger Sheety

A searing piece of defiance and mourning, this poem turns the language of apology on its head to confront the hypocrisy, violence, and dehumanization Palestinians have long endured.

Forgive us for not being white enough,

For not having blonde hair and blue eyes,

For (most of us) having the “wrong” religion.

Forgive us for being Palestinian,

For being Muslim and Christian and secular.

Forgive us for being Arabs,

For being demonized by your silly movies and books.

Forgive us for being here long before you in our homeland,

For our native olive trees and our native thobes and our native songs.

Forgive us for our nativeness and for your artifice and fraud.

Forgive us for not caring what you think about us,

For not being the perfect victims.

Forgive us that our language comes before yours,

That it is richer, deeper, and more expressive.

Forgive us for writing your holy books,

That you don’t understand.

Forgive us for your endless unholy wars,

Your cowardice, your sheer hatred.

Forgive us our warriors for defending our land on our land.

Forgive us your terrorists who come and go

From far and wide.

Forgive us for your depravity, your immorality,

Your profound ignorance.

Forgive us for your mediocrity,

Your cultural backwardness, your emptiness.

Forgive us for the babies you’ve burned and buried alive,

For the mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, daughters, sons, and grandparents you murdered

In their sleep,

For all your confessions masquerading as accusations.

And forgive us for not wanting to die silently

While you go about your busy important lives.

Truly, we are sorry.

– Roger Sheety is an editor and writer, and has published essays and articles for The Palestine Chronicle and the Middle East Eye focusing on Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.