If you’re like me, you’ve been following the US election even though you’d rather look away. As a Canadian, I have no vote, and yet, I care more than I’ve ever cared before. It’s hard not to care when American policy affects so much of what happens not just within its own borders, but across the world.

My first thought continues to be Palestine. The killing of Palestinians now not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank. The destruction of whatever little civil infrastructure still exists. The annexing of more and more and more land. This is the first thing on my mind as I watch a speech, a rally, a debate. And last week’s presidential debate was no exception.

Last week, after the presidential debate, I furiously wrote this out on my phone when I found myself unable to sleep.

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The world’s most lethal fighting force

When you promise”the world’s most lethal fighting force”

what I hearisCraters the length of football fieldspregnant with tentsfilled with familieswho fledafter the school was bombedafter the friend’s house was bombedafter their uncle’s house was bombedafter their house was bombed

What I seeisA girl who wakes up to the chaosin the burnt husk of another hospitalshrapnel covering her little faceA girl who asks her doctorin a panicif this is the heaven her mother promised

She is concernedbecause it’s noisyand it’s scary and it still smells like death(the stench is unbearable, you see, and we can’t smell it through our screens,but it is blood and rotting flesh, and raw sewagemixed together with the sharp sting of still-hot metal.)and the dust? The dust is everywhereit cakes her face it lines the beds and the windowsillsit is the remains of every building no longer standing.

Her mother said that if the bombs comethe next time she woke up, she’d be in heavenand her mother has never lied before, but this?this does not seem like heaven

What I see is A father of newborn twinscelebrating new lifeso rare in these partsA father who walks the rubble-filled streets to get his babies’ birth certificates and walks back to find the apartmentwith his wife and babies (those perfect, tiny creatures! 10 fingers! 10 toes!) GoneA blackened hole in its place

What I see is A man abducted off the streets of GazaReturned months laterHis eyeshauntedunable to hide the animal fear of what they’ve endured

When you promisethe world’s most lethal fighting forceI’m not impressed but terrified

But thenyou were never trying to impress mewere you?

Every scenario I’ve described above is real.

The craters are the result of a recently bombed tent camp in Khan Younis, Gaza, where Israel dropped 2000 pound bombs on families sleeping in tents in the middle of the night, killing or burying alive whole families in a matter of seconds on the night of September 10th.

The girl in the hospital asked this doctor if she was in heaven in this clip below.

The father of newborn twins’ story can be found here

And finally, this man. This poor man’s face is haunted, and will haunt me to my dying day.

This poem could have been hundreds of pages long. I’ve left out some of the most indelible images, because I cannot bring myself to write extensively about beheaded babies, pregnant women and their husbands, killed and hung by soldiers on the roof of their house, innocent men taken into torture camps called prisons and raped, hungry dogs eating human remains on the streets.

We need more than a ceasefire. We need an arms embargo. We need unfettered access to aid and health workers. We need a massive influx of everything required to rebuild society in both Gaza and the West Bank, and we need the authority figures who led this charge held to account. Anything less is not justice, and not enough.

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Let’s chat in the comments:

* Have you been following the US presidential election?

* What are your thoughts on Kamala? Are you conflicted like me?

* Are there statements you’ve heard, political or otherwise, that were meant to impress you but instead terrified you? Tell me about them.

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