I wake up.
Then,
I hear the sound
of being alone.
From that silence
slowly grows
the sound of
murder.
I am still the child
being abused.
Sounds
no one should hear
every morning.
I think of my friends.
I think of Alpha,
who was raped so many times:
fleeing from Nigeria to Tripoli,
fleeing from Tripoli to Degerloch.
How many times?
How does her morning silence sound?
I think of Omega,
forced
at the point of a gun in Tripoli
to watch Alpha’s rape.
Omega’s brother was murdered next to him
in a field in Cameroon.
On his calf
he showed me the scar
of the mortal machete
he managed to escape,
because he ran faster.
He has survivor’s guilt.
How does his silence sound?
I sent him to trauma therapists.
They gave him earphones and music to listen to.
Why—so he wouldn’t hear silence any more?
We all hear things
we shouldn’t.
Problem is,
this is life.
I plant seeds on my balcony
to watch life
grow anew,
silently.
When my herbs get larger,
the chickadee hops around
and the ladybug larva crawls
cleaning bugs off my plants for me.
Also life.
This morning I’m going to make
ham and fried potatoes
and eggs with clean chives and parsley,
silently.
All strange.
All life.
