By Dr. Adnan Bouzan

We are the ones who loved life
when life was narrow
like a shirt pierced by bullets,
who fell in love with freedom
as it walked barefoot
over the glass of exile.

We were not devotees of death,
nor lovers of rifles.
We planted wheat
in school notebooks,
and dreamed of a house
with a window opening onto tomorrow,
not onto barricades.

But fate—
that arrogant fool—
threw into our path
maps of fire
and said:
Go on…
either you become,
or you cease to be.

So we chose to become.

We chose to sign
the covenant of steadfastness
with blood that knows no ink,
to carry our names
like banners that do not break,
and to stand—
even with our last shadow—
in the face of the storm.

We are a people
who, whenever the night tightens around us,
widen it with songs,
and whenever a stone is shattered,
turn it into a stair
ascending toward the sun.

We fight…
not because fighting is desire,
but because freedom
does not hand over its keys
except to those
who knock on its door
with a wounded fist.

We move on…
our steps heavy
with the names of the absent,
yet we do not look back,
for the road—
having learned sorrow—
now knows us.

We are the children of stubborn hope;
we hide it in our chests
like a child who survived a massacre,
and we guard it
from despair
and from cold advice.

We believe that tomorrow
is not a gift,
but a postponed battle,
and that the homeland
is not borders on a map,
but a pulse
that refuses to stop
even as it bleeds.

And if we fall,
we will rise again—
with another name,
another face,
but the same dream.

For we were not created
to die in silence,
but to live…
to fight…
and to move forward…

And with every new wound
we write our ancient will:
we will love life
when we find a way to it,
and we will create the way
if it does not exist.