She recorded my symptoms with fidelity:
Heaviness, hopelessness, uncontrollable crying.
“I wear it like a blanket.”
She thought I was being poetic. But I meant my
keffiyeh.
Distrust, disillusionment, distraction.
“I don’t know what to do or where to go.”
She suggested journaling or a walk in
woods. But I meant should I get arrested or
light myself on fire?
Guilt, grief, a grudge against the world.
An answer lit her screen and
she announced, finally, :
“Moral injury! You’re suffering from moral injury!”
It had a name. All this time it
had a name. These
twenty months the only
names I knew were
Sidra and Hind and the
Soul of my Soul. The Rafah gate
and the Salah al‑Din Road …
She filed her diagnosis and
said there is no simple cure. It was
just something I had. But I
wanted to ask, how does it not
have you?