4/8/2020 : Dara Mouracade

Some days live in the body long after they’ve passed.

Some days never really end.

It’s been five years.

And somehow, it is still August 4, 2020, at 6:07 PM.

Still the image of the mushroom cloud rising over the port.

Still the breath of the explosion reaching me, even from over 50 kilometers away in the mountains.

Still the split second where time stretched and snapped, and I thought they’re all gone.

Still my mother calling my sister, my brother running back, my heart thudding out of rhythm, the chickens scattering like sirens.

The house didn't fall. I wasn't injured.

But a part of me collapsed that day, silently, beneath the surface.

A collapse made of shock, guilt, grief, and a rage so vast I still haven’t found its edges.

What do you call that moment when your city explodes before your eyes and no one is held accountable?

What do you call a nation of survivors, aching and alive, still picking up shards of trust from the streets?

Some call it trauma.

Some call it resistance.

Some call it home.

That day, we didn’t wait.

We didn’t wait for governments or institutions or saviors.

We swept glass. We boarded windows. We mended wounds.

We held one another.

We fed each other.

We grieved together.

It wasn’t organized. It wasn’t perfect. It was human.

That’s what saved us.

But love, community, cannot bear this weight alone.

Not forever.

Not again.

My nephew asked today why the guilty weren’t being punished.

Why were they not suffering worse?

We had no answer.

Because justice in this land has no teeth. It has no arms.

And sometimes it feels like it has no voice either.

So I lend mine. Again and again.

I write for those we've lost.

I write for those who stayed.

I write for those who left and carry Beirut in their chest like a phantom limb.

I write because silence is not an option.

And still I ask:

Why do these things need to happen in the first place?

Why do we store weapons of war in cities full of children and dreamers?

Why do we still choose violence, again and again and again?

I want us to stop calling this resilience.

This isn’t about bouncing back.

This is about standing in the rubble and refusing to look away.

It’s about waking up every morning and saying: I’m still here. I’m still trying. I still believe peace is possible.

This is post-traumatic clarity.

This is remembering that the opposite of despair is not hope.

It’s action.

To the ones we lost:

I will never rest.

Not until we live 1,000 years of peace.

Not until justice roars louder than the blast that stole you.

Not until we make something sacred out of all this brokenness.

To those reading:

Don’t turn away.

Don’t scroll past.

Let it break your heart a little.

And then, do something with that broken-open heart.

Fight for safety. For dignity. For life.

We owe the dead more than flowers.

We owe them a country worth mourning, one that learns, that changes, that chooses life.

The greatest betrayal would be to let them die for nothing.

To truly mourn them is to rebuild a country where such loss is no longer possible. That’s the justice we still owe.

And to those who stayed:

You are not invisible.

You are the gold in the cracks.

You are the reason we keep going.

It’s still August 4, every day of every month of every year.

But maybe, together, we can make it mean something more.