I enter Auschwitz 1.
Apprehensive crunches with every step.

I stand in a gas chamber.
Fully clothed.
With oxygen flowing freely.

I stand on a spot where thousands have stood before me.
But I'm able to make an exit,
Yet I'm rooted to the floor,
Transfixed with horror.
I feel like the last remaining tree,
surrounded by a forest of death.

Deforestation makes me sick.

*

Birkenau has a secret
that it doesn't want to tell.
A broken ending stood still.

The arches.
The ruins.
The tracks.
Thuds of reality slapping my face.

Stood inside the bleak barracks,
our guide asks us
"Imagine what it would like to be here -
What you'd see,
smell,
hear."

My eyes widen open in a scream,
they sting, fighting back at the image conjured within my mind.
I take a sharp breath
and close my eyes.

I am scared.