I have not tried to see
Through the eyes of a refugee

I am aware of them
Here and there
And in between
But I have not seen
Through their eyes
I have not measured
I have not weighed
The worlds they leave
Nor the worlds they imagine
Across the sea

I know one of them
Through a friend
When her journey ended
She said she started off
In a wave
Of many hopeful souls

She has now arrived
In her new world
Has a husband
And a child
And a house
And a new tongue to talk in

Though introduced
We never met
Her wounded way
From there to here
Was flooded in tears
An inundation

An escape
An emigration
Of desperation
Manipulation
By a gauntlet of men
A bartering of copulation
Then,
Immigration

“The rest died
Only I survived”
She said

Sean Hunt  Jan 2 2017

With a heavy heart
this mind grows numb
stumbling through days
dumbed down through pills and pain

A re-creation of life
on the inside of my mind
that forgets to wind clocks,
that tick but don't tock

Insanity is slow
and the public aren't told
of the dependants that rot
but never live to get old

With one slipper on
and one sock not
a revolution of days
not lived, but marked off.

There are one hundred and twenty six tiles on my ceiling
If you count all the halves.
I know because sleeping is what normal people do in their bedroom
and normal is not my favorite descriptive word.
Why say you're normal when you could be
fabulous,
magnificent,
tenacious,
or incorrigible?
But why would I ask you?
It's obvious you don't know the rules of the game
because why would you say you love me
when you don’t?
Is it because my halves
don’t add up to perfect tiles?
I know I have a few cracks,
some warped edges,
and missing chunks,
But my imperfections tell a story;
I won’t hide behind flat spackle.
Besides,
I always thought my ceiling
could use a few stains.

You're the pesky bee
buzzin' 'round my head.
I'd slap you away,
but I'm afraid instead.

Afraid that I might miss
your annoying buzzing sound.
Afraid that you might kiss
other flowers on the ground.

She’s got a cheap cigarette
she uses to bury us all in smoke.
It hangs off her lips
and wobbles when she talks.
She’s cracked open a new book,
another ****** romance.

It’s always romance,
she says, taking a drag from her cigarette.
It’s in everything, in every **** book.
Each word she speaks is followed by a puff of smoke,
small clouds that form as she talks
and roll off of the curve of her lips,

the very same lips
that told me romance
is for suckers, told me talks
of love are talks of nothing rolled into a cigarette
she’d never smoke.
She’s burned pages of a book

before, left small holes in her **** book
when a gasp left her lips.
The empty space between us is full of tension and smoke
and somehow, romance
that hangs in the air like a half hit cigarette
hangs on the edge of the ashtray. She talks

of mystery and science and pool and our talks
never include that tension, though I could write a book
full of the way she glances past her cigarette
at me, how her inviting lips
beg me to foolishly romance
her by hurling nervous smiles through her wall of smoke.

Clichéd as it may be, smoke
alarms scream when she so much as talks
about any sort of romance,
if even just the fictional sort in her book
and I want to sear her with my fire, burn her with my lips
just like she burns her cigarette.

The smoke from her cigarette doesn’t bother me anymore
and I can’t help but watch her lips when she talks.
I keep holding on to hope that maybe I can be a chapter in her ****** romance book.

To say you'll pick up
Is a fifty-fifty shot
But that means that you are,
Just as much as you're not
They tell me I'm pretty,
If only that was enough
Seems even kids get sick of candy
If they eat too much