This was the poem that I wrote as a response to our Cultural Seminar: written from the perspective of a victim of this tragedy. It is rather short, but I ended up writing this when I got home the night of this presentation, and have yet to share it until today.
I cannot taste.
The fruit from the old mango tree in our yard, though there is something.
The moisture from my own tongue, though there is wetness.
The sweet water that I long to drink
just one more time.
I cannot smell..
The scent of fresh grass in the morning.
The breeze of a windy evening, though this is not a fresh breeze.
My mother’s shirt, how I long to breathe that in
just one more time.
I cannot touch.
My own cracked lips.
My own ripped shorts, torn at the knees from falling so many times.
My own two hands, if only I could massage that ache
just one more time.
I cannot hear
The voice of my sister, singing.
The school bell ringing, though this ringing is nothing I’ve heard before.
The sounds of laughter, how I long to hear that
just one more time.
I cannot see
The shining light of the morning through my window
The smiling face of my friends, though I still see their faces.
How I wish that they’d smile
Just one more time.
-=|=-
Inspired from my experiences this summer, I hadn’t actually realized how much it would hurt to lose these children, my children. The kids that grew me every day, who I watched change and who watched me change. To go from some half-baked employee to a fully functional Recreation Leader – it was the children. And to think that events carry on in this world that slaughter people, children too, systematically and heartlessly. It hurts to imagine these children being removed from my life, and I can imagine that both the feeling of actual death and to be so broken would feel like a complete sensory shutdown, in which you can only remember the faintest of memories. And we long to go back to what we could once feel, long to have just one more experience before it is gone forever, before we are irreversibly damaged.