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Dvorah Leah Kvasnik

It’s Been 300 Days

The signs hang. The ribbons are tied, the pins are pinned, the marchers are marching. The clock moves, as it tends to. 7,200 times the hour hand leapt forward, like a ballerina in a box, stuck in a vicious cycle of seconds. The necklaces dangle on our sternums and the message engraved in the thick metal sits on our lungs. You are with us in every breath. 

For 300 mornings we’ve woken up with fog settled on our shoulders.

The sun is stuck at half past six. 

We’ve been holding the emptiness. Ironic is its weight, its form, the way its taken shape. Despair carefully sculpted a delicate coffee mug, steaming with the scent of hope in an attempt to keep us awake. Grief picked a vibrant bouquet of flowers from the graveyard. Violence weaved a warm quilt to block out the nightmares. Anguish composed iconic melodies, and got us out of our chairs.

We danced again. And again. And again.

There is no sense to be made of the pain. 

There is only a pottery wheel, and our two bare hands. A song, and our two bare feet.

About the Author
Dvorah Leah Kvasnik grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She spent her gap year in Tomer Devorah Seminary, and just completed her volunteer national service in Jerusalem. Dvorah Leah is now working for Chabad on Campus at American University in Washington DC. She loves busy Friday mornings in the shuk, journaling at the Kottel, and to watch sunset at the beach.