I am a child soldier conscripted, unarmed
the proxy of the enemy
in a war without end-
my only retreat is within myself
I cannot leave the battlefield
The war in a disturbed home
is never over
there is no escape from
the narcissist dictator-
to decry its crimes
risks death or revenge
just the same
As a seer of the truth
I cannot stand, only bend
and try to soften horrors
with pleas and mews of obeisance.
There is no advance
only retreat-
sometimes I exist
barely breathing
reduced to a point
in a vague floating world
under glacier silence
recoiled in a recess
of self-negation
where time and pain
stop but so do
reason, sensation, and memory
Yet, the mercy of obliteration
is a fleeting respite
and pain appears again
in waves, shaking and pounding
reawakening me
drawing me forth over its
cutting edges, its twists, and turns
devised by an unpredictable
master mad-mind.
returning me to the pinhole
from whence I came
around the singularity left of me.
Oh child soldier
conscripted to pay
for others’ sins through
punishments meted without merit-
One day a door will open
and you must walk towards the light
with this potent seed
seemingly tiny and timorous
but filled with stores
of untold suffering
and restorative potentialities
to a field where you are
free to regrow yourself
In the light and gain
courage in the knowledge
that you are not the evil
that was done to you-
You are made new and free
in your choice to go
your choice to grow.
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