genocide – Writers Resist

I visited Gaza in my sleep

By Sophia Carroll

I worked in a medical tent. Do they still have medical tents? I’m not a doctor but in my dream, I could tell who we could save by touching them. Some people burned from infection. I knew we didn’t have medicine. I heard mothers scream, that sound that predates language. I hugged a boy of fourteen. He had no one. I wanted to take him home but that is impossible. Are we still free? He said he was coming back to fight, to avenge his family. I meant to birth a baby. Went to wash my hands and was suddenly in the kitchen of the house I grew up in, as if I could go back and forth like my money. As if I could wash my hands. They’re still dirty.

Sophia Carroll (she/they) is an analytical chemist and writer. Her work appears in wildness, SmokeLong Quarterly, Rust & Moth, and elsewhere. She is also the co-founder of M E N A C E, a magazine for the literary weird. Find her on Substack at Torpor Chamber and on Bluesky @torpor-chamber.bsky.social.

Photo by Damien Walmsley via a Creative Commons license.

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Refugees

By Leah Mueller

for Basel Adra

Each morning, he awakens
to the same gunfire, the same pain.

He sees the enemy’s
implacable face: square body
bundled into a gray flak vest,
weapon clutched inside an outstretched glove.
His home once more reduced to rubble.

He moves his possessions
to a different structure,
and then to another, each
more remedial than the last.

Water is scarce, food almost nonexistent.
Loaf of bread, spoonful of white rice.
Sometimes, a few vegetables.

The young eat first.
Parents devour whatever remains.

Elders know when airstrikes are coming,
sense the impact deep within their bones.
Still, they laugh. They nap. They play with the children.
They cover their wounds with strips of cloth.

Each afternoon, he hits the road:
trudging through dust, demanding freedom
that he may never live to see.
Townspeople cluster around him, chanting
as they clutch handmade signs.

Their slogans dream of a home
where Palestinians belong at last—
a land that lies right in front of them,
and yet seems as distant as sleep.

Leah Mueller’s work is published in Rattle, NonBinary Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Citron Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Does It Have Pockets, Outlook Springs, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She has received several nominations for Pushcart and Best of the Net. One of her short stories appears in the 2022 edition of Best Small Fictions. Her fourteenth book, Stealing Buddha was published by Anxiety Press in 2024. Website: www.leahmueller.org.

Photograph by Dale Spencer via a Creative Commons license.

Standard Safety Recommendations: Revised, 2025

By Ryan McCarty

Honesty may no longer be the best
policy, depending on who’s asking.
And sometimes accepting a ride
from strangers is the safest way home.
Do not secure your own mask
before helping children or others.
Listen to your body, though.
Carrying heavy weight at arm’s length
can stagger you. Bent knees alone
will not be enough to do all the lifting.
Hold what needs to be picked up
close to your chest. Share warmth
with people who are in the cold.
If you smell smoke, do not wedge
a wet towel under the door. Listen
for coughing and the scuff of bodies
looking for fresh air. Always let them in.
It is still better to be safe than sorry,
because jails and mass graves
will never be emptied by apologies.

Ryan McCarty is a writer and teacher, living in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where the poems walk around talking to each other and doing the good work, even though it seems like there’s more to do every day. His writing has appeared recently in places like Abandoned Mine, Blue Collar Review, Door is a Jar, Left Voice, Michigan Quarterly Online, Rattle Poets Respond, and Trailer Park Quarterly. He also writes at ryanmccarty.substack.com.

Photo credit: Wordshore via a Creative Commons licsense.

A note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.