A poem by Maysa Hawwash

Maysa Hawwash is co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide.
This poem originally published in her October 21, 2026 Substack.

Dear Spectator,
Welcome to our show.
Pull up a chair.
Get an up-close-and-personal,
front-row view
of our never-ending nightmare,
the one you scroll past
between your coffee
and your next meeting.

Let us show you what the deepest
depths of depravity look like.

Let us give you new chapters
for your medical textbooks.

Let us show you our wounds,
deep red and throbbing,
stitched once,
stitched twice,
stitched three times,
until there is no tissue left
to hold them shut.

Let us show you our internal organs,
arranged and rearranged.
A masterful work of art
by a surgeon who hasn’t slept in three days.

Let us show you our broken bones,
splinted with broken doors
and window frames.

Let us bring you into the fires
that consume us.
A spectacular show and tell.
A tent goes up in flames.
A little arm flickers through the fire
as if waving at you.
Wave back, spectator

Let us show you hunger,
the anatomy beneath our skin:
the emptiness where a girl’s cheek used to be,
ribs so visible they don’t need an X-ray.

Watch closely how our dignity gets stripped away.
A girl learns
that her body is the object of an endless search.
Watch in slow motion:
the kneeling,
the stripping,
the beating,
a soldier laughing
as he takes selfies for his girlfriend.
Our daily ritual of waiting in the sun
for permission to reach school,
reach a hospital,
reach tomorrow.

Let us show you fear
in the eyes of an eight-year-old boy
who learned to hide
before he learned to write,
and has grown so accustomed
to the sound of drones
that quiet frightens him more.

We really appreciate your attendance.
Please leave us a five-star review.
It helps humanitarians raise funds.
All for a good cause.

Now, let us hold up a mirror
so you can fix your hair,
adjust your makeup,
and go about your day.

Please allow us to be
your most precious reminder
of your God-given superiority.
We can be the over there
that makes your over here
feel just right.

Let us be the drama feature
you watch with a glass of wine,
the lecture you try to attend,
the book on your shelf,
proof that you are the kind of person
who cares about these kinds of things.

Let us be the footnote in your dissertation,
the slide in your keynote,
with a trigger warning in small font.

Let us be the savage
to make you feel civilized,
the anecdote at dinner parties
when you get tired of small talk.

Let us enrich your research.
How many dead?
How many maimed?
How many more
before you publish?

Let us inspire your next legacy project.
Build us a museum.
A curated masterpiece.
Cut the ribbon, raise a glass.
Everyone will say never again,
and mean it, of course,
just as they did before.

Allow us to be an anniversary,
a black mark on your calendar,
observed with a moment of silence.
As if silence was not our first killer.

Let us keep bleeding
while you add to the cart, check out,
complain about the late train.
Oh, that long day.
We would give anything
to know we’d see the end of today.

We appreciate you.
After all, you lit a candle.
You signed a petition you forgot by lunch.
You stood at a vigil in a warm coat. We are grateful for your thoughts,
and for your prayers,
and mostly for your deep concern.

We assure you,
they will be buried with our loved ones.
We forgive you for calling us savage
for the way we scream,
while you whisper your discontent
so faintly,
lest you wake the neighbours.

Forgive us for making you look away.
Too gory.
Too painful.
Too savage.
Turn off the screen.
Disconnect the audio.
Indulge in a little shopping therapy.
Oh, how we envy your self-compassion.

Ah… before you go:
The savagery was never in the photograph.
It was in the bomb,
made in your country.
In the taxes you paid.
In the silence you called neutrality. One day your grandchildren will ask
where you were
when all this was going on.
You will say:
Front row.