id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
genesis-28307	Adie, Selma	I Miss the Homs Shopping Malls	2024	1	.pdf	application/pdf	255	4	42	74 The first time I learned what death was I saw body bags lined up roughly in the hallway of a mall There was nowhere else to put them Soon enough, the bags ran out, and then it was just bodies Bloodied and bruised and charred in weird ways There wasn’t enough press to cover every death So survivors wandered down the line, looking for someone they recognized A mother, a son, a brother For some, their face would turn suddenly And they’d throw themselves on a body, sobbing Others just looked solemn and sat by their friends’ remains A week later, I went to an American funeral for the first time I was eight and just starting to understand what it meant to die I was scared because I didn’t want to see a family friend’s dad Splayed and bloodied on the floor of our local shopping mall And I wondered where I’d go when I died With my people, blue and swollen, on a bloody linoleum floor Or in an empty room, in an elaborate casket, alone Selma Adie I Miss the Homs Shopping Malls	cache/genesis-28307.pdf	txt/genesis-28307.txt