In Black And White
Location
She pressed her hands agaisnt the photographs
Hoping to push away the memories
Of that never forgotten past
The pain
The sorrow
The nagging rip in her soul that she lived a life time trying to hide
Hide from the pain and the searing memories
That gave her nightmares
And a fear of growing close to people
A fear of loving
Even the sound of certien voices
An accent
A language still could shake her to the core
On those days
She would lay in bed just content to have a bed
A place where they couldn't get to her anymore
She was safe here
But her heart was so used to fear
That fear had become her
And over coming it was a daily hope and chore
It was laid out in black in white
Across a coffee table
A hundred faces
All with names and familes
Hopes and dreams and futures
But they were cut short
Just like her familes
Barbed wire fences
Smoke stacks
And the smell that never left you nose
The taste of food dreams
When food never came
And when it did
In the form of sawdust bread and rotten meat with broth thrown on top
Bodies
And more bodies
Torture
And hangings
Hoping to make it another day
Wishing to disapear with those that were taken and never returned
But she made it
And the only record left of those she left behind
Are those black and white photographs
She keeps tucked under her pilliow
After 70 years of remembering
She reaches and sweeps them into her hand and drops them one by one into the trash
It is time she whispers to stop living behind barbed wire fences of my mind
And to stop dwelling on German days and cold nights