MOSAIC

Dear contributors and readers,

This year was hard.

I think, out of fear of losing hope, we don’t say that enough. But we should. This year was hard. Sometimes, when I open my phone, it feels like Instagram has become a eulogy for my community. Sometimes, it feels like no one else cares.

But the contributors of this issue give me hope.

To write honestly is one of the most difficult things we can do—and yet, the poets, prose writers, and artists in this issue do it with stunning clarity and strength. Their work matters. Beyond the personal catharsis or the mastery of craft, we publish to offer those outside the MENA/SWANA community a chance to see us as we truly are—not as others have misrepresented us.

We are not terrorists. We are not passive victims. We are not stock images of starving, dirt-smudged faces used to elicit pity from strangers who never take the time to truly know us.

We are people. We are alive.

And our lives, our cultures, are inseparable from beauty. Remember that when you speak the names of Palestinians, Syrians, Afghans, and every member of our global community that is currently in crisis and needs our help. The MENA/SWANA existence carries forward the beauty our ancestors created. Our living evolves it. Like a mosaic, even when we break, we come together creating something even more beautiful each time.

Thank you to Aisha, Hamzeh, Hala, Hedayat, Hibah, Jaweerya, Kat, Umamah, sajjar, Shams, Zuhra, Aster, Nihal, Lobna, and Sfarda—for your patience, your trust, and your belief in Qafiyah.

Thank you, Mom, for making tea while I wrote this.

With so much love,
Celina