Dec 1, 2011

Hope is the thing with feathers*



It comes fast. You feel your body getting tense. You feel ants crawling under your skin. Your chest feels heavy. You gasp for air. There is none. You are cold. Covered in sweat. You want to push down the very heavy rock from your chest. You cant. You want to cry. You cant. You gasp for air... you gasp for air... you hear the sounds... the music... you see the scenes... blood, butchered bodies, gunshots, your dad's hand that was hanging out of the ambulance back door, mothers who moan and scream to the sky and sob... never ending tears... tear gas, rapes, tortures... you gasp for air... for air... for air in total darkness. 

And after a couple of minutes that feels like a life time you can breathe. You throw up, you cry, hard and long. And it's gone. The flash back is gone. 


My friends and I are messaging each other. That we miss each other. That we wish we could get together for tea or a drink like normal friends do. I tell them I am hopeless. Nothing will change. Not in our life time. That we have no country left. No land. As we are messaging each other, I watch the clips from the protests. I see young lives fall on the streets, covered in their own blood, I see mothers crying over the tortured bodies of their children... and the weight is there, on my chest. I see blood, I see hope, I see torture wounds, I see graves, many of them. I see my mom sobbing for my brother... I see unfair, unjust in its extremes. And I gasp for air. I try to focus. Breathe in... breathe out. I say to myself "yes, you can. you can cry. Cry. Breathe... And this time I can. tears open the way of breathing. Oh how grateful I am to my tears.
People should live happy lives, grow old with their families and friends, and then die. I guess it's a no brainer for my Canadian friends.
For me and my family and friends... we dream of being able to have tea together.
one day.
some day.
somewhere.

* by Emily Dickinson