The Tree of Dichotomy – עץ הדיכוטומיה – شجرة التناقضات

More about The Tree of Dichotomy – עץ הדיכוטומיה – شجرة التناقضات

[Yonatan]
I hear the sirens before the dawn breaks, a trembling sound that claws through my dreams. They say the walls protect us — but walls are only stones, and stones cannot teach a heart how to feel safe. I am told I am lucky, told that I am shielded — but when my father stares at the news, his silence is a wound that cuts me too.

I dream of soccer fields, of laughter, of a sky where nothing falls except sunlight. But even my dreams are interrupted by the weight of "us" and "them." I do not know her name, but I feel her in the silence after every explosion, like an echo of the fear I try to hide.

[Amina]
I see the sky fall. It isn’t the sky that frightens me, but the knowing — that someone decided my home is no longer allowed to exist. The bread is gone, the water bitter and thin, but the love in my mother’s voice still warms me in the dark, like the last flame refusing to surrender.

I dream of climbing trees without the sound of drones stitching the clouds above me. I dream of schoolbooks, of windows that do not break, of streets where footsteps do not run only to survive. I do not know his name, but I know he must feel it too — that unspoken trembling, that cost of war written in children’s hearts.

[The Tree of Dichotomy]
One branch grows in shadow, the other in flame — but the same roots drink the same blood of the earth. The wind that shakes one leaf shakes them all. The world thinks one branch is safe from the fire. It believes distance is protection. But fire has many forms: fear is a slow-burning flame, silence a suffocating smoke. The trauma runs both ways — some wounds are carved by shrapnel, others by the weight of knowing you are linked to someone else’s suffering, and cannot break free.

[Together]
We are not enemies. We are two children caught in a storm that neither of us called. Our dreams are the same color when they are stripped of flags and borders. We both want to run, to laugh, to build something that is not broken. The war that takes from her also takes from me. We are branches of the same tree, and the roots are crying.

Aaron Baker
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