5th July, 2024 |

For future lovers, fathers, grandfathers, nephews and brothers – a letter from Algerian women to Algerian men who don’t remember:

Don’t you remember?

I hope you remember

Me on the terrace

In ululation for freedom

And they came

And they went

And they pointed guns!

And they could have taken us…

But we stretched our vocal chords wider,

and we stretched them perpendicular

Like a she-wolf howls at the Harvest moon

Except this was our moon!

And our star!

And our green!

And our white!

And our flag!

And our

freedom…

I remember through my genetic predisposition, I struggled but stood just nearby, and we hid you and we fought by your side

STILL, generational trauma is an EXPERT at erasing memories, and an EXPERT at goodbyes

You finally recall the depth in your ancestral ally,

Grandmother worked and that’s, also, my life of pi

As deep as pacts go, and deeper,

I ask, tears streaming down, our tired…

sigh;

The war is over my love, won’t you love and treat me better? —You promise first, And so will…

l;

Image: Place Emir Abdelkader, Algiers