At nights, I wake up and think of that desert. I think of its people. What are they doing now?

How many of them have been killed?

How many are wounded?

How many are buried under rubble?

How many are under torture?

How many have been hit by bullets and can’t even sway beside the dark walls of abandoned buildings?

I do not love that desert. Not every desert. That desert. That desert frightens me. That desert reminds me of my loneliness, of the days I used to lose finger and toe nails, because of poverty. That desert is worse than anything I have seen.

Yet for a moment, my mind does not stray from imagining the desert.

I’ve woken up in the middle of the night before, too.

My waking is not just today or yesterday. But whenever blood mixes with the sand of that desert, I wake up at night like it’s 6 am.

Imagining those people, running, screaming, advancing with empty hands, tears my heart to pieces. It makes the desert even more terrifying in my mind.

And it makes me hate that desert, even more.