The day before the ceasefire, the US was promising to wipe Iran off the map. “A whole civilization will die tonight,” Trump wrote, “never to be brought back again.”

My cousin wrote me from Tehran. “Blowing up power plants? Causing millions to die? If our electricity goes down, I don’t know what we can do. There will be nothing left.” He asked me how things seemed from where I stood in the West. “Do you think Trump is bluffing? Do you think I need to take it seriously?” He asked if he should run while he still could.

I was restless that day, so I spent the evening with some friends in a bar. We talked about what Trump’s threats might mean in practice. Was he capable of using a nuclear bomb? We thought about what it meant to live in a time where that seemed possible again. But we couldn’t keep it up for long. We went home expecting to wake up to a new world. I checked Instagram before bed. In Israel, the pundits on the evening news were sitting around a ticking countdown clock.

When I awoke to news of a ceasefire, I breathed a sigh of relief.

A few hours later, Israel unleashed hell on Lebanon. Within a ten-minute window, Israel bombarded densely-populated Beirut neighborhoods over 100 times. At least 300 were killed. Among them was Khatoun Salma, a poet, killed in her apartment alongside her husband. In the rubble that was their home, Khatoun’s daughter found her purse. Inside it was a handwritten poem.

My hands, have you noticed how they tremble?
My eyes, have you seen their confusion?
Have you seen the smoke?
Have you smelled the fire?
Glimpsed my weakness?
Seen my exhaustion?
Have you seen the parts of me scattered?

I’m scared that we’ve come to the time
when I won’t be able to feel you either.
Forgive me but I love you.