I am dead inside. I am exhausted. Shell shocked. Traumatized. Carrying survivor’s guilt. Unable to eat. Unable to sleep. Constantly replaying the explosion in my head. Fearful. So fearful. Not resilient. Paralyzed.

Day 2? Day 3? I don’t know anymore. I am restless. I can feel my heart literally breaking in my chest. I can’t organize my thoughts. I feel so guilty, torn between wanting to help my neighbors or picking up the pieces inside my home. I end up doing neither (1)

Instead, while I’m helplessly looking around, unable to wrap my head around any of it, not knowing where to start, my students show up, ask me to go lay down, and proceed to clean everything around me. They even oversee the man fixing my front door, which was blasted open (2)

My cat is still hiding somewhere in the apartment. He has not budged in 2 days. His food and water left untouched. I was able to coax him out last night but his heart was beating so fast that I let him hide again (3)

I close off the door of the most affected room in the house. If I can’t see it, then it didn’t happen. I go lay down in my bed. I want to shower. I’m scared. I want to sleep. I’m scared. I can’t sleep. (4)

All I hear is shattered glass, grazing against my brain. Shattered glass being sweeped. Shattered glass being thrown into the large garbage containers in front of my building. I shut my bedroom door. I shut my balcony door. I cocoon myself. (5)

Can’t. I just can’t. I get up, I open one door and the other door slams open and I am so startled I start sobbing. I was pretty sure they were there to finish off what they started. It was a miracle I made it the first time around (6).

When the explosion happened, I was in my living room, barefoot, had just gotten out of the shower. Every piece of glass in that room shattered around me. Not one shard touched me. My walls are embedded with glass. I don’t remember if I screamed. I’m pretty sure I did (7)

I check my body. I’m unharmed. I ran barefoot across my living room, get dressed, run down to me neighbors to check on them. Everyone is hysterical. Hysterical is an understatement. I go back up, look for my cat. Find my cat. Run back down. I’m on the street (8)

It was chaos. Mayhem. Yellow. Orange. Everyone around me is bleeding. I am just standing there. Disoriented. Lost. Confused. Dazed. A young woman from the Philippines, grabs me. She has a deep cut in her eyelid. She shakes me awake. Begs me to help her find a ride back home (9).

I start waving down cars. Any car. No one stops. Everyone is scared. Until finally a kind young man does and says “anything you want, anywhere you want”. I don’t know him, I tell him I love him. He drives off. I wonder how she is and how she is feeling (10)

Meanwhile, a woman alone in a car, parks to the side, too shocked to drive, all the glass shattered in her car. Deep cuts in her face. I stand by her window. We cry together. Two strangers, in the midst of a pandemic, we hold hands and we sob together (11).

I stand in the middle of the street and I scream at the top of my lungs. Not a scream of fear. It was a primal scream of anger, like a wounded animal. Are we this dispensable to you, you money grubbing, corrupt, scum of the universe? (12)

An extremely bloodied man approaches me. He asks me if I’m okay. I check my body for wounds again. He says “not a scratch” and smiles at me. He walks away. I’m still looking at him walk away. He turns back one last time. I wonder how he is. (13)

I check my phone. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages pouring through from all over the world. I convulsively gasp like a child through voice notes to my people. I have a sudden urge to tell everyone I love them. (14)

Compatriots, friends, family, today I love you more than ever. You remind me that there are still things to love in this country. Meanwhile, I’ll pick up the pieces of my broken brain and try to move forward (15) #BeirutExplosions