By Dev Rai
11th grade | Oakton High School | Virginia
Finalist in the K–11 contest, Peace and Conflict category
With lines from "A Mother and Baby From Gaza Are Reunited 11 Months After Being Separated at Birth" by Elissa Nadworny, Fatima Al-Kassab, and Claire Harbage, a Pulitzer Center-supported story
The pink balloon does not know
it is pink.
It does not know
it is being held
by a child from Gaza
in a market in Doha,
where birds keep calling
from bright cages
and no ceiling falls.
It knows only
the pull of a small fist.
The wish to rise.
The string
keeping it close
to a lap.
Below it,
a mother sits
in a wheelchair.
Below it,
a baby laughs.
Below it,
everyone is trying
not to look
too long
at the space between them.
"It's me, your mom."
The balloon does not know
what a mother is.
It does not know
that a mother
is supposed to be
the first country
a child recognizes.
It does not know
that sometimes war
moves a country
out of reach.
It does not know
that this baby
was born while the world
around her broke open,
that before she had
memory,
there was dust,
there was darkness,
there was a room
where no one knew
how much life could fit
inside one breath.
The balloon only knows
up.
The mother knows
before.
Before the chair.
Before the pins.
Before the missing arm.
Before Doha.
Before the word safe
became a place
that still did not feel
like home.
Before her son's laugh
became something
kept inside a phone.
Before her daughter's laugh
began sounding
just like his.
"Mariam doesn't recognize her."
The sentence
is small enough
to fit in a room.
Small enough
to say once.
Small enough
to pass over
if you are reading quickly.
But it is not small.
It is a door
closing quietly.
It is a mother
becoming a stranger
to the child
her body saved.
It is the kind of pain
that does not make noise
because noise
would not be enough.
The baby reaches
for her grandmother.
No one blames her.
Babies know
who lifts them
when they cry.
Who warms the bottle.
Who appears
in the doorway.
They do not know
visas.
They do not know borders.
They do not know
that a face on a screen
can love them
with its whole life
and still not be able
to reach through the glass.
For months,
the mother watched
her daughter become real
from far away.
A tooth.
A sound.
A hand opening
and closing
like a little bird.
Every new thing
arrived
in the wrong room.
A baby can grow
through a screen.
A mother cannot touch
through one.
Still,
the balloon rises.
Still,
the mother waits.
Still,
the child laughs
because children
do not ask
whether joy is allowed.
In the apartment,
the rooms fill
with family.
Someone makes coffee.
Someone scrolls past photos
too heavy to hold
and too precious
to delete.
Someone says,
"She's the fruit of this house."
And for a moment,
the baby is not only
what survived.
She is noise
in a quiet place.
She is popcorn
falling on a shirt.
She is a pink balloon
bumping softly
against air.
She is a reason
to practice standing.
A reason
to enter the kitchen.
A reason
to believe
not everything war touches
will belong to war forever.
The balloon does not know
any of this.
It does not know
why the mother smiles
when the baby stays
for one more second.
It does not know
why one second
can feel like a country.
Why one laugh
can open
and close
the same wound.
Why one child
can carry
two children's echoes
in her face.
The balloon knows only
the hand holding it.
The hand loosening.
The hand tightening again.
Sometimes hope
is not the sky.
Sometimes hope
is the string.
The thin part.
The part
that can break.
The part
someone still holds onto.
In the market,
there is no falling concrete,
no smoke in the doorway,
no dust where a bedroom
used to be.
Only birds.
Only color.
Only a baby
squealing
at something pink
and weightless.
But the mother knows
safety is not the same
as home.
The mother knows
a new city
can keep the body alive
and still not know
where to place
the heart.
The mother knows
a child can sit
on your lap
and still be
far away.
So she begins again.
Not all at once.
Not like a miracle.
More like a hand
learning another hand.
More like a name
said softly
until the child turns.
More like a life
rebuilt
from the smallest pieces
war forgot
to take.
"Bit by bit it's getting better."
Bit by bit,
the baby stays.
Bit by bit,
the mother becomes
less unfamiliar.
Bit by bit,
the room learns
how to breathe
around what is missing.
The pink balloon
touches the ceiling.
It wants to leave.
It cannot.
Below it,
the child laughs.
Below it,
the mother watches.
Below it,
the future
does not promise
to be kind.
But for now,
for this one small moment,
it is held.
Dev Rai is a rising senior at Oakton High School in Vienna, Virginia, and a 2026 YoungArts Winner with Distinction in Writing. Through his writing, he seeks to bring awareness to global issues and help readers understand how they affect individual lives and communities. He wrote this poem to deepen readers’ understanding of the human cost of the war in Gaza, particularly how separation and displacement can continue reshaping a family even after they reach safety. He hopes his work can build empathy and make experiences far from our own feel personal.
Read more winning entries from the 2026 Fighting Words Poetry Contest.