A Child of a Child of Displacement

Nadine looks at her father’s face, the one she’s looked at so many times in her life, a face she’s studied under the under dim light. One she could paint by memory if only she had the hands of an artist. Smile wrinkles engraved in his skin, from his years of laughing and pain upon pain. The years she would never truly understand or comprehend but laugh at anyway, as he recounts the happy stories of himself in his university days.

Suddenly his face brightens up and the fatigue that permanently stains his under eyes vanishes. A giddy excitement of how things used to be, like going to the doctor’s to get a “verified” leave, the test cheating and trouble making and challenging narrow-minded professors because, because we’re Palestinian and it's in our blood. As Nadine listens and laughs, she looks back at her father with an indescribable sadness filling her eyes.

Although he is recounting happy times, those days were because of their own blood betrayed. Those were the days spent in Turkey, the days when he was displaced, where he had no true place to call home, the days where the acquaintances he made were because of shared trauma and burying the same bones, the days where a shared language bridged the gap between friend and foe, where life was merely black and white, tic tac toe, days where he had to leave family behind to continue the family name, a story of woe.

So the anger anchored deep within him makes sense. The sacrifices he easily makes for his family today make sense because all he’s ever known of attained love is through risk. Although his hands were calloused, they warmed Nadine’s small ones, holding her with a gentleness reserved just for her, the way they presented the terrorizing Palestinian man was never one she experienced or could ever infer.

As Nadine listens to her father recount his days, tears fill her eyes, realizing that there will always be a sadness where good memories reside. The memories are where she can feel her father’s embrace although she was never there, never saw his young face yet still felt nuzzled under his arm in this different way. A life that was not her own yet it felt so entirely like hers and theirs and everyone shared.

Nadine realized that being born Palestinian came with a lingering sorrow. Different canvases with the same tares, there was a change in the way we talked and walked and breathed and cared. For you goodbye is a wave, but for us goodbye is nothing less than a funeral. Claw marks in everything we’ve ever held, if you let us, we won’t ever let each other go.

about the poet

Nadine Mürvet Elashy (she/her) is a Palestinian-Turkish poet and spoken word artist who uses poetry to navigate emotional turmoil and explore themes of mental health and cultural identity. Fluent in English and Turkish, she writes free verse, turning personal narratives of love and pain into powerful poetic expressions. Nadine has performed at numerous open mics, rallies, and vigils, advocating for authentic liberation. A graduate of McMaster's Creative Writing & Narrative Arts program, she represented the McMaster Unspoken club. She collaborates with Stay Woke NPO and universities across Ontario to inspire youth through art. Her debut poetry book, The Precipice of Nonexistence, will be released in 2025.