War Child….
Sometimes we try to forget the things we never knew,
The smell of burnt shrapnel,
The shrieks of agony,
The colour of bullets swimming in streams of blood,
And the shaking…the shaking,
But I have no choice but to remember…You see I was born in the midst of this.
The first 2 years of my life have been etched in my skin like a scar,
A constant reminder of what I cannot remember but feel,
A memory that holds on tight and suffocates,
They tell me the first time I fainted I was 8 months old,
My mother was sat under a makeshift table with me in her arms,
The bullets danced against the walls, and my body convulsed to the same beat.
They tell me when I was 1 years old I was walking but I could not talk,
I cried, I whimpered, I smiled… But I could not talk,
“She is mute!” they would yell.
My mother tells me there was not a moment of peace,
That even at night the gunshots were our lullabies.
18 months old and I was now talking, walking, playing,
3 months of ceasefire…of an internal and external war,
But it was just the calm before the storm,
They tell me the second time I fainted was a day before the ceasefire ended,
Playing with my siblings I fell…this time I was still,
No violent convulsion….it was a still, quiet moment,
They tell me I would have appeared to be dead, if my eyes did not signal life.
2 years old and we finally prepare to leave,
As we walked towards an iron bird, a few steps away from ‘a new life’…I collapsed for the third time,
This time I did not faint… My body did not shake, and I was not still,
My mother tells me she put me down to walk onto the plane and turned to see me sat on the floor,
I would not get up…I could not get up,
She tells me I looked different, altered.
Half my face unchanged, the other drained of all life.
Left arm and left leg…numb.
There was no time to go back for help,
My mother picks me up and we board,
As the iron bird lands on foreign ground, my mother calls for help,
They tell her it was a stroke, post- traumatic stress,
How can you explain to someone that their child’s body reacted to what their mind could not yet comprehend?
So 23 years later I try to make sense of it all.
Perhaps the convulsions were my body’s way of reminding me that violence is never distant, and that it can lie within,
And how even now hearing a car engine backfire, makes my bones jolt,
Perhaps it’s only when we feel the beat, that we can create a new rhythm?
They say the shrieks of anguish from those injured, were as deafening as the bullets,
So perhaps my silence was the only thing that would make me heard,
Perhaps that is why even now when I am scared, I never scream, but freeze,
Perhaps, silence is often the loudest cry for help.
Though mostly ‘able’ my half altered body is a reminder that a part of me will forever be that scared little girl, that war child,
And as I carry her on my left side, she holds my heart,
Perhaps my body is a constant reminder of a world I cannot remember, but will never forget.