Exposed Roots Witness ~ Notes from a Hunger Ward
This powerful dual-form narrative confronts readers with the intimate realities of survival under siege, told through both lyrical prose and experimental verse. The writing transforms statistics into flesh and breath, following Layla as she cradles her dying nephew in a hospital where doctors faint from hunger and mothers are too weak to cry. Through the central metaphor of exposed olive tree roots—ancient, enduring, yet vulnerable when stripped bare—the work captures both the resilience and limits of human survival. The experimental second piece fractures language itself to mirror the disorientation of trauma, using typography and repetition to create a visceral reading experience. This is essential contemporary literature that refuses to let us turn away, bridging the distance between comfortable lives and unimaginable suffering through unforgettable imagery: bird-bone ribs, the mathematics of starvation, and love that persists even when there's nothing left to give.
Exposed Roots
The exposed roots of the olive tree outside the hospital tell their own story—how the earth has been scraped away, layer by layer, until what should be hidden is bare to the sun. Layla thinks of this as she holds her nephew's weightless body, his ribs like a bird's cage beneath paper skin.
Why did they fire their weapons? The question hangs in the suffocating air of the makeshift ward, unanswered. It was asked by someone's grandmother three beds over, or perhaps it lives only in the collective exhaustion that pools between the mothers here.
Dr. Nasser's hands shake as he checks the IV line—not from age, but from the dizzy spells that come when you've given your rations to the children for the fifth day running. He is learning a new mathematics: how many grams of flour equal one more hour of breath, how many spoonfuls of sugar water might coax a baby's fist to unclench.
Lay down your tired head and tell us everything you know.
But what does Layla know? She knows the weight of her sister's baby diminishing daily in her arms—her sister who ran toward the food distribution point when the trucks came, who became one of the statistics the aid agencies had warned about. She knows the particular silence of a room where mothers and children are too weak to cry, where the loudest sound is the futile beating of broken fans against heat thick as grief.
Outside, someone is playing golf. Not here—somewhere else in the world where the ground holds its secrets properly buried, where roots stay hidden and fed. She imagines the neat arc of the ball against an uncomplicated sky, the satisfying thud of it landing on groomed grass. How easy it must be to turn away, to lean into the simple physics of leisure rather than the complex mathematics of survival.
The journalists come, their eyes wide, trying to record and share-tell these realities. They speak of bearing witness, of not turning away. But Layla wonders what good witnessing does when the flour has run out, when the hospitals are running on fumes, when her nephew's immune system collapses like a house with no foundation.
For a growing number of malnourished bodies with limbs that are the same width as their bones.
In the morgue—that silver table that has become too familiar—another small body in a white sleepsuit. The mothers have learned not to look, but Layla forces herself to witness: the jutting ribs, the bird-bones, the way starvation makes sculptors of us all, carving away everything nonessential until only the architecture of survival remains.
Three days ago, pallets fell from the sky—canned food, sugar, flour—like manna in a biblical story gone wrong. People died trying to reach them, shot as they ran through controlled territory, their hunger making them reckless. Now the aid sits in some warehouse, rationed by hands that have never known the equation of survival.
Layla's mother used to tell her about the olive trees of their old village, how their roots went deep, how they could survive on almost nothing. "We are like those trees," she would say, "made to endure."
But even olive trees have limits. Even their roots, when exposed, wither in the unforgiving sun.
Her nephew's breathing changes—a flutter, a pause. Dr. Nasser moves quickly despite his dizziness, but they all know the truth written in the child's translucent skin: bodies are shutting down, one by one, while somewhere else in the world, someone is choosing between clubs, calculating the distance to the green.
Earth war zone or conflict zone journalism is more of a leaning in to understanding.
Layla wants to tell the journalist who hovers nearby with her recorder that understanding is not enough. That all the recording and sharing-telling in the world cannot fill an empty stomach or breathe life into collapsing lungs. That the opposite of turning away is not simply looking—it is reaching out, filling hands, breaking the mathematics of scarcity.
But she says nothing. She only holds her nephew closer, feeling his ribs like exposed roots against her chest, and waits for whatever comes next in this place where nightmares walk with open eyes, where one in three go days without eating, where the loudest sound in a room full of children is the beating of broken fans, and where love persists despite having nothing left to give.
The olive tree outside has been there for generations, its roots exposed now but still reaching, still searching for water in the wounded earth. Perhaps endurance looks like this: not thriving but simply refusing to let go, even when everything that fed you has been stripped away.
Perhaps it looks like a woman holding a dying child, singing a lullaby into the suffocating heat, pretending for one more moment that there might be a tomorrow where the trucks come freely, where no one is shot for running toward bread, where roots can hide again in the safe darkness of earth, drinking deeply, growing strong.
Exposed Roots
olive roots / exposed / like veins outside the body / hospital white / white sleepsuit / white bones showing through / bird-cage ribs /
(why did they fire their weapons?)
tree-voice asking or grandmother-voice asking or no one asking but the question is HERE in the air thick as
layla holds weightlessness / nephew-bird / hollow bones / mathematics of hunger:
5 days = shaking hands
3 spoonfuls sugar water = unclenched fist
0 flour = silence louder than broken fans
somewhere:
golf ball arc clean sky THUD
(turn away)
neat grass / no bodies underneath
dr. nasser dizzy spell dizzy spell counting:
one mississippi two mississippi three missi—
IV drip drip drip like time leaking
lay down your tired head
(whose voice?)
tell us everything you know
WHAT LAYLA KNOWS:
- sister ran toward bread / became statistic
- heat thick as grief thick as blood thick as
- olive trees survive on almost nothing
- (we are like those trees)
- mother said that
- mother's voice inside the roots inside the—
journalist eyes WIDE OPEN recording recording the architecture of:
s t a r v a t i o n
makes sculptors of us all
carving carving down to bone-width limbs
silver table / morgue / too familiar like:
morning prayer
empty stomach
sound of jets overhead
(don't look but look but don't but—)
MANNA FALLING:
pallets from sky-god
canned food / sugar / flour
people shot running through controlled territory
(control who controls the controlled the control—)
hunger makes us reckless makes us
mathematics again:
distance to food truck ÷ bullets =
warehouse full / stomachs empty
whose hands ration the rations?
exposed roots tell stories:
earth scraped away layer by
layer by
layer by
(everything that should be hidden)
breathe flutter pause
bodies shutting down like:
- lights clicking off
- systems collapsing
- houses with no foundation
- trees with no earth
ONE IN THREE ONE IN THREE ONE IN THREE
days without eating
(who counts? who's counting?)
journalist wants UNDERSTANDING but
understanding ≠ bread
recording ≠ breathing
sharing-telling ≠ filling hands
olive tree generations old roots reaching still
searching for water in wounded earth wounded
(where does water hide when earth bleeds?)
layla singing:
lullaby into suffocating heat
pretending tomorrow
pretending trucks come freely
pretending no one shot for running toward—
LOUDER THAN:
- crying that stopped
- mothers too weak to mother
- fans beating broken against heat
- silence
bird-bones against chest
ribs like exposed roots like exposed
everything exposed under sun that shouldn't—
golf club choosing (somewhere else)
distance to green calculated while
distance to death incalculable here
endurance looks like:
not letting go when stripped
when scraped
when roots show through skin
nephew-bird:
flying or falling?
(both)
(neither)
roots exposed but still reaching down down down into—
white sleepsuit peeled back on silver table shows:
architecture of ending
blueprint of hunger
map of nowhere left to go except
olive tree outside knows:
survival is not thriving
survival is refusing
survival is exposed roots still reaching for
(what?)
(water that isn't there)
(earth that remembers when it was whole)
(tomorrow that might not)
(might)
layla holds holds holds
what weighs nothing
what means everything
what breaks the mathematics of—
WITNESS:
eyes wide open in the zone where earth bleeds
but witnessing is not
is not
is never enough when
fans beat beat beat broken against
heat thick as grief thick as tomorrow that
might might might come
if roots find water
if hands fill
if if if
(why did they fire their weapons?)
question circling like birds with nowhere to land
like pallets falling from sky
like golf balls arcing over groomed earth where
no one's roots are showing where
no one's ribs are exposed where
no one counts the mathematics of
one more breath
one more moment
one more
olive tree says:
(or mother said)
(or roots whisper)
we endure
