"My story to write, not yours"

Our school was having a talent show were multi-cultural students come and speak out. Their story, who they are. I spent 2 hours writing this Spoken Word poetry but I got rejected...

Hello, my name is Danya Wazwaz

It’s okay if you can’t pronounce that right, many can’t

But my name is not the message in which I wanted to share, not the reason I'm here

The reason I’m standing on this stage, presenting myself to you

Is to tell you who I am.

To start it off, I am a Muslim

And proud of it too, yet people try to make me feel as if I shouldn’t be

But give me one good, actual reason why I shouldn’t be?

And with the second, I am Palestinian

And with this scarf, I’ll show off my pride

Because I have got nothing to hide

Nothing on me that I don’t want to share without the feeling of being blessed

Now I know there will always be one person

That one person, who would love to hate

To push me down. And I know there is one of you here

But to be honest, I don’t care

You think that you know me,

Know what my life consists of, know what I’ve been through.

But don’t start walking away yet

Because I have a lot to tell you.

Palestinian, and Muslim

I never thought that being who I am,

Who I was born to be, would be shot with bullets

Bullets of hate, bullets of ignorance

On the news, “Isis attack again”

“Palestinians shoot down a soldier”

But I am not Isis. And I am not a terrorist

Yet why do you still see me as one?

See me as one to attack the innocent?

I only have a piece of paper in my hand

Yet somehow you’ll change the perspective of it and see it as an attack

What am I gonna do? Give you a papercut of death?

I got spit on, I got pushed

I got flicked off many times it isn’t even surprising anymore

I remember as a kid, wearing my palestinian cap smiling

And a man in his car passed by, and said to me,

get the F out of our country and die in yours you terrorist

But I obviously didn’t know what that mean. What first grader would?

In my old schools, I have always been around muslims

Not as many non-muslims

But that doesn’t mean that I was immune to hate

Because hate is everywhere

Whether in the biased american media

Or through the mouth of ignorant human beings

Hate is, and will always be near me

But my armor still hasn’t worn down

Because being a Palestinian Muslim is still who I am,

and who I will be until God says it is my time

And sure, the hate towards me was bad

But not as bad as others

"Man gets pushed in front of an upcoming subway

Because woman thought he looked muslim"

She thought.

We are told as kids

Think before you act

But what they should’ve said

Is to think about your actions, before you act

She probably thought, he is a muslim I should push him

What she should’ve thought was if I push him,

and he turns out to be anything but muslim, I could be in trouble

The reason she did it. Revenge for 9/11

It’s funny how the world accuses all muslims for being terrorists because of 9/11

I’m not Osama Bin Laden, I’m not related to him

Every muslim I know, isn’t him, or is related to him

So why must we suffer from his attacks?

The world thinks that most terrorists are muslims

But you only think that because almost every terrorist group, or attack

That you see on the news, is titled as

“Muslims strike again”

But I have a fact that will surprise you,

that I know a lot of you won’t believe

But of the 1.7 billion muslims,

and the 100,000 al qaeda members,

and the 31,500 Isis members,

Those 2 “islamic” terrorist groups only consists of 0.00007735294% of the whole Islamic population

So are we the real problem?

I do have a simple question.

Why can’t we be us, but you can be you?

Why can’t I be me, and figure out my full self

without you labeling me.

With a barcode of hate

Each line and each number, representing

what I am not.

Why can’t I read my Quran in peace,

pray without your spit landing in my face

Walk in the halls, without the worry

Of what could happen to me

Everyday i walk in the school

I always try to enter or at least pass by E3

My friend asks me why

And I say, because it is the only place

Where I can find my flag, where I can look at it

And think maybe I do belong here

But then I go into the cafeteria,

and see the Israeli flag instead of Palestine’s

and think maybe not.

But I will not give up.

I will fight and speak for my country and religion

For my people until my final breath

In your opinion, can you honestly say

that you knew most of the stuff, that I have just said

I will always be here for my country.

If you can fight for yours, I can fight for mine

And think to yourself, if you have ever,

or thought of telling someone non-american

“Go back to your country”

Realize that the reason they can’t go back to their country,

is because their country is being bombed, slaughtered by yours

So yeah. I’ll go back to my country, but why don’t you get it out of it first?

Now I’m going to sign-off with something I tell myself,

every single day, if I i’m alive the next morning.

I will yell if I can, for the justice of my people

If I can’t yell, I’ll whisper

I’ll whisper if I can, for the justice of my people

If I can’t whisper, that’s fine

If 9/11, deserves a moment of silence,

Then Palestine deserves us to never speak again

Author's Note

Please no hate towards my people or inner self.

I don't know if my school rejected this as hate crime, or another reason. But i'm still proud of my work.