THE SECRET OF A REFUGEE.

Coffins lay buried with tender bones

Seas impoverished with life on boats

Faces dry but mouths parched.

Mother said –a prison is better

Silly mother, did not know the ritual,

If you find danger on land

Leave your children in the sea.

Blood brown and faces dark

Ashen hands that still pray.

I envy these men with courage;

Courage-to kill brothers and

Yet hear a stranger with a voice.

I too had a voice

They told me to stay shut

I had a secret I whisper at night

Somebody listens, leaving me at my plight.

Stir my innocence, devil

Knives put away not guns

Still can hold my neck as

Smoke fills my heart

Hands go numb with blood

To eat, to live my mother,

Prison could have been better

But is it? You tell me.

The sea kept it

The land does not-a secret

Which opens arms but not arms.