Small witness

It’s 3.18 am. I’m not sure if I’ve woken up or if I haven’t fallen asleep yet. If I was dreaming, I can’t remember what it was about.

The radiator clanks like a metal heart in a tin man. I think about my own heart and imagine it looks like the macrame plant hanger a friend made for my leaf cuttings. Knotted, twisted.

It’s a shit metaphor, but also it’s the middle of the night, when creativity rarely visits me.

I don’t want to look at my phone, but I am obsessed with the need to bear witness to the broken world at all times. I suspect it’s bad for me, and for the world. I reach for it, but don’t unlock it yet, unwilling to invite genocide into my dreams.

After dinner, I had accidentally broken a plate and unhinged the trash can lid when I tried to throw away its pieces. I was shaking hard as I did the dishes. My son had just told me about a friend’s mother, who had said it was too bad about children’s deaths, but some things are necessary to root out evil.

To look my child in the face and speak of the necessary murder of other brown children. To speak of others as evil, as you acknowledge the expendability of babies.

I am pregnant, and I can’t have coffee anymore without a wave of nausea. Quiet morning lattes will no longer be my bright spot, I decide. This child will be my daily comfort, its existence still a secret from most.

Six months ago, I would have been sheepish, admitting to friends that I am anticipating a third child. You just don’t know how to relax, they’d laugh. Their incredulity would be tinged with the slightest hint of judgement. She just found her feet. He just started a new career. Can they even afford it?

Tin man’s heart clanks louder as I force my cold feet under my husband’s warm body. I am thinking how little I care about what my friends will think now, when the secret starts to swell under my blouse.

My husband is full of despair about our children living in a world that doesn’t value their lives. I am full of conviction that children-our own or anyone else’s-are the only reason for anyone to be alive. Some old version of me would have thought it’s crazy to think of raising good children as some sort of moral bulwark against fascism. I often think of that old version of me.

I just found my feet.

We just started new careers.

Can we even afford it?

It is 3.21am, and a Palestinian mother is refusing to let go of a shroud holding the remains of her child.

I think to myself that the moment I start judging myself for celebrating life by the metrics of imperial success, my macrame heart might as well be dead. Do we own a house, do we have a nanny, will we vacation in other stolen lands?

It is 3.24am, and a child in Gaza stuffs a fist in his mouth so his mother doesn’t hear him scream of hunger.

I have a bright spot under my knotted heart, beginning to swell under my thick comforter, waiting to live.