To the Girl in Gaza, From a Girl in Afghanistan

I never told you this,  
but I know what it sounds like  
when the sky opens its mouth too wide.

My mother also promised rain.  
She told my sisters  
that with pain comes gain.  
We giggled ourselves to sleep  
on thin carpets  
while the mountains held their breath.

One morning,I was seven
my father left for bread  
and the sky came down  
like a thousand sharp fingers.

Not rain.  
Not the soft kind she sang about.  
It was a shower, she called it later
like it was something you could stand under  
and come out clean.

But I remember the noise.  
The way my ears went blind.  
The way my little sister laughed  
because she thought it was fireworks,  
and I let her believe it  
for three full seconds  
before I grabbed her hand  
and we ran  
and ran  
and ran  
and the ground kept shaking  
like it was trying to throw us off.

We hid in the stairwell.  
My mother's voice was a thread  
pulling through the chaos
stay down, stay down, stay down
and I held my sister's mouth  
with my whole palm  
so she wouldn't cry out  
and give us away to the sky.

When it stopped,  
the dust was so thick  
I could taste my own lungs.  
We crawled out  
and my mother was still there,  
still standing,  
still promising  
that everything comes from the sky,  
that those who wait for good  
will always deserve it.

She never said what kind of good.

I'm telling you this  
because I heard your name today  
on a crackling radio  
in a neighbor's house.  
They said Gaza is raining again.  
They said children are stretching out their hands.

And I thought of you
a girl I've never met,  
a girl with a different sky,  
a girl who also woke up hungry  
and smiling wide  
because her mother promised rain  
would arrive before her.

I know what you saw this morning.  
One big drop.  
Sharp noise.  
Everyone yelling—even your mother.  
She told you rain made people happy.  
You stretched out your hand  
to touch the falling drop.

I know, little one.  
I did the same.  
And the rain that fell  
was not the kind that grows things.

I want to tell you it gets softer.  
That one day the sky will remember  
it was meant to hold only clouds and birds.  
But I'm still waiting for that rain  
the real kind
and I'm seventeen now,  
and the mountains still hold their breath,  
and my little sister  
still flinches at loud sounds,  
and my mother still says  
with pain comes gain  
like a prayer she's not sure she believes.

But here is what I do know:  
You are not alone in the noise.  
I am holding my hand out too
not to catch what falls,  
but to reach across the dust  
and find yours.

We are both daughters  
of mothers who promised rain.  
We are both waiting  
for the sky to remember  
what it owes us.

Stay low. Stay alive.  
And when it stops
when it always stops 
look for the ones who are still standing.

They will be your new family.  
I promise.

Like my mother promised rain.

A daughter of Kabul, to a daughter of Gaza.