Since the beginning of December, my mental state has been in continuous decline; getting from bad to worse. All the obsessions and thoughts I believed I had overcome have returned. The truth is that I shall never be able to get past anything I was supposed to. I was only pretending it was over, buried once and for all. Yet, it turns out to be it was not. It seems to be like some nuclear waste. Even if it was buried, it remains dangerous and a source of threat.
Whenever I take one step closer, I fall into that dark hole of loss that has devoured my soul. I felt like I was suffocating from the silence; from fear, and from the stories left untold. Everyone who knew me realizes that I was a storyteller. I loved narrating. Today, I keep asking myself, how did I lose my voice and the way I speak?! Apparently, I turned to be that little girl who is just beginning to form words, where the first one I can say is “Mama”. Even the pronunciation of Mama I can hardly remember!
A long time has passed. I still cannot find a single person I can trust enough to tell the story to. This is hell. I do not remember how the first night passed and how I believed that it was true!
My brain acts as if it knows everything; even my other distant parallel world and all that is deep inside me. How can I convince “him” that I am aware of what is best for me and that “he” should erase all my disappointing memories from my head, one by one! Every time I go through a hard night, I wake up remembering nothing of what happened. My brain refuses to tell the story.
Rita Abu Sedo
19/12/2025
(Translated by the team of Palestinian Stories)
