CrossFireArabia
The Pavement of Waiting
By Ibrahim Isam
She stood there, waiting for tomorrow.
She did not know its name—only that it was supposed to bring hope.
She dreamed of ordinary things:
a wooden desk, a notebook, a pencil,
a morning without fear.
She wanted to light a fire to cook,
not to burn what war had left behind.
She wanted to grow up
without growing old too soon.
Then she looked beyond the camera, toward us, and asked without speaking:
Have you ever imagined that this could be your child?
If you had, perhaps you would not see a photograph.
You would see a life waiting for its most basic right:
to exist without fear.
And perhaps this is the question her eyes leave with us:
When a child must wait for humanity to remember her,
what does that say about us?
She is not an image of war.
She is the conscience of a world that has learned to look away.
And still, she waits.
Because as long as that small light remains in her eyes,
we have not yet earned the right to say that hope is dead.
