A Resonant Death: Poems & Reflections by Fatima Hassouna

A RESONANT DEATH 

Edited and translated by Batool Abu Akleen

Fatima Hassouna is a young Palestinian writer, photographer, and journalist who was born and raised in Gaza. A couple of years ago, Fatima got her bachelor’s degree in multimedia. Her photos have taken part in many exhibitions around the world and have been published in international magazines.

Three days ago, and a few hours after talking to her, I received the news that Fatima had been killed along with her family in an airstrike that targeted her house in Al-Tuffah neighborhood. Fatima is—and I will never use the past tense to talk about her—a very creative, sensitive human who is full of energy and love. You can see this in her writing and photos. Fatima recently got engaged, and she dreamed of building a family, of having and raising kids.

Heartsick, I am sharing with you my translations of some of her prose and poetry, as it was her wish to have a RESONANT death. –BAK.

 

Six Resonances

By Fatima Hassouna

Translated by Batool Abu Akleen

 

This massacre taught us how to shrink things, turning them collapsible. The world became so very small that you could carry it on your back. You could reduce the world to one bag, or even to two palms and a naked back!

This massacre taught me how to shrink myself, how to shut up while death was between my jaws, how to listen to its sound as it grew closer, how to train myself to accept the reality of the sudden vanishing of all things, how to accept it without any complaint, without umbrage.

All of what happened, all of what is happening is training us to become everything except a normal human.

In my head, only one question circles:

What was the martyr thinking about? What was the last thought stuck in his head before a missile smashed it? What were his wishes going to be, if he knew the last moment was coming?

I often think, “If I live to a full age, will it be enough to do all I want and all I wish? And if I die, will all my wishes die with me?”

I am still thinking about this martyr. He came here, was killed, they wiped away his blood, they shrouded him, while none of his family knew yet. But after I left, I saw all their faces: his wife whose eyes were eaten up by tears; his brothers who were in pained shock; and his mother who couldn’t walk any further, hoping she wouldn’t reach him, so she wouldn’t see what she would see. But it was the truth, the fait accompli.

I think about it a lot:

“Really, what was the last thought in his head?

Did he live enough?

Did he die enough?

I don’t know.”

For 300 days, I was accompanied by Anya—my camera, and my only good friend who knew how to catch things, how to take the photos I wanted. For 300 days, my brothers and I were being killed in this massacre. Blood has been flowing over the ground, and I’ve become afraid of the moment when my brothers’ blood will reach me, will stain me. For 300 days, we’ve been seeing only black and red, smelling the scent of death, eating bitter apples, touching only corpses.

It’s the first time  I have experienced such a massive loss. I have lost 11 members of my family,  the dearest to my heart. Still, nothing can stop me. I roam the streets every day without any master plan. I just want the world to see what I see. I am taking photos to archive this period of my life. I am taking photos of this history which my sons might hear of, or might not.

We, we’re dying here every day in many colors and shapes. I die a thousand times when I see a child suffer; I splinter, I turn into ashes. It hurts me, what we’ve become. This nonsense hurts me, and this monster that eats us every day: it hurts.

Every day when I leave, I see my mother waving goodbye, but I don’t turn around. I don’t want to see those eyes. I don’t want all this sorrow for my mother, but what is there in this city? It is only death.

On mentioning death, the inevitable death:

If I must die, I want a resonant death. I want to be neither a newsflash, nor a number within a group. I want a death heard by the whole world, an impact imprinted forever, and everlasting photos that won’t be buried by time or place.

All I fear is

dying of hunger

I desire things animals haven’t desired

I eat things animals haven’t eaten

 

Death is watching me

The shelling is watching me

My fierce enemy is lurking

waiting for the first bite to reach an empty stomach

so he can kill me with it

He snatches it from my palm

and runs away

 

My stomach keeps crying out:

“I am hungry for a satisfying bite”

While my enemy’s friend is eating from McDonald’s

drinking his iced coffee in pleasant surroundings

watching

while my fierce enemy snatches from my fist

the last bite

and runs away

while it turns into a real fear:

“I am dying of hunger”

Tomorrow

When war gets back to its house

dragging behind it my age

Like empty tin cans tied to a string,

I will longingly remember that tumult

and cry

I will cry like a child

or like a miserable woman

right in the middle of the road.

I will think, maybe I have to tell you

“Wake me up when we arrive”

or

“When all of this ends”

Good morning,

 

This morning, a swift-footed question came into my mind, a question about what life would be like after the war ends. How would things taste after this time of deprivation? How would chocolate taste when I tried it for the first time after nine months? Did I actually forget how it tasted? What would I feel when, for the first time, my mother cooked me roasted chicken in a vegetable sauce alongside a plate of rice, or her marvelous makluba?

I am wondering,

“Will I feel full and dizzy one day, that kind of dizziness after sating myself on this meal, as I used to do? Or won’t my stomach accept this exquisite food, since it’s been occupied by shoddy food for such a long time?

What will I feel when I bite into the first apple, the first fruit? Will I be limited to only one, or will there be more? “

I am wondering about my feelings toward the world then, when I feel full. Will I go back to seeing a promising life, feeling that there is something to live for in this world? Or will it fail to change, because this war made us see the world from another vantage, and in many hideous ways?

Dear world, who think themselves fair and human,

Do you really see those wishes as a normal thing in 2024?

Fatima Hassouna is a photojournalist and writer in Gaza. A documentary focusing on her life in Gaza, made by the Iranian director Sepideh Farsi and titled “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” is set to debut at a French independent film festival that runs parallel to Cannes.

Batool Abu Akleen is a Palestinian poet and translator, who was born and raised in Gaza City. She survived the 2023-2025 genocide. She is studying English literature and translation at the Islamic University of Gaza. At the age of 15, Abu Akleen won the Barjeel Poetry Prize for her poem “I Did Not Steal the Cloud,” which was also translated and published as part of the anthology Di acqua e di tempo. In 2024, she was the Poet in Resistance with Modern Poetry in Translation. This May, her debut bilingual poetry collection 48Kg. /٤٨ كغم will be published by Tenement Press.