He can’t sleep. He can’t speak. He just whistles. The wind works its way through his tight teenage lips, disrupting the subtly silent suburb. Frequencies fluctuate. In the distance a dog barks. Then another dog barks. The piercing sound of high pitched whistling doesn’t stop. Aside from his holey jeans, old flip flops, and smelly green shirt, whistling is all he has. The sound resonates with everything he is.

He whistles with the lost hope of love. There is a soft undertone of sorrow. His whistle is as beautiful as a piccolo. It is more fluid than a flute. Farther in the distance a mournful howl echoes in response to the whistle.

The night carries him onto a bus. One stranger stares scowling viciously.

Another strangers growls, “Shut the **** up.”

However, this pied piper cannot. He refuses to stop. The whistling continues.

        Up and down, it is a haunting sound. Fifteen minutes of whistling while the bus carries him home, to nowhere. Here there is an empty alleyway with a metal grate giving off waves of stray heat. He works his way to the one dumpster occasionally stocked with the days rotten left overs. To some the stench would turn their stomach, but to him it is sweet salvation.

An officers asks him to stop and show his I.D, to no avail. The request is repeated carrying a hint of arrogance and anger. Even so, the whistler is unable to stop. A hard hand grabs his wiry arms. They struggle, another officer joins the fray. Somewhere along the line a foot smashes against his ribs. He whistles for them to stop, pleading with his pursed lips. Steel toed shoes smash his gaunt face. The whistler finally stops.

The cops do not. Years’ worth of rage works itself out on the young man’s body. Inside his skull the whistling continues accompanied by a ringing. Pain singing and singeing his brain, leaves him breathless. This is nothing new. It is no worse than his history. The red welts, the black bruises, the damaged ear drums, and the broken larynx, all the scars from previous violence.

Violence meant to silence. Beatings that stole the words from his breaths. Speaking through the wind was all he had left. A secret language he kept to himself. The dead tell no tales. Instead the wind whistles back at a broken corpse.

hobos blow their noses while boxcars roll on slowly
an image of a hard time past.  gathered crops for
harvest.
And in earnest I have collected roses
smiled like dead heads left baking in the sun.
And in the dead of night in bed clutching my gun.
i find sleep fitfully in small doses.

My gears have not been oiled for years
They are oiled with
the dry crusty blood that encases my body
Pain is my friend
Yet it is my enemy
For everywhere I look
I see myself in reflection
Everything I touch
is me in return

Numbers
That’s who we are
Who cares about names
Names are too hard to say
Too hard to whisper
Too hard to even process in our minds
For we slowly melt away
Dig a hole in the dirt
And sleep
A long deep sleep
Yet I think
I think of the gateway to come in the future
A gateway that will free me
from my pain

I try to look at the camera
Yet light blinds my sensitive body
I crouch and bend
Light
Too much for me
For I live in darkness
And this darkness abides in me

The numbers huddle,
crouch
The man says for us to look up
And I remember that when in front of a camera
A smile should appear
Yet my face becomes distorted
Wrinkles that crease my beaten face
hang deeply engraved
Like a stone
That’s my smile

Being here
I suffocate under the blanket of stench
That arises from under the
Torn sheets
And the camera man with one click
Captures our life
A life that will be lived for years to come
And by many others later
A life that is a cycle of suffering
As it slowly chokes me
Day by day
Night by night
As I wait
and hope
To disappear

You left me in this scene of the crime,
in the mouth of your enemy;
but unbeknownst to you
is an undefeated one.
Undead like yesterday's song.
You found me on one fateful night
from your days of valor and prime,
blew sonnets on my wounds out of charity; the terror's nowhere to be found, it is gone.
The enemy is *******, his legs are helpless.
Now he's gnawing on my flesh,
this dainty darling rose could care less.
He's determined to cut my petals,
slice them each by thirty-fours,
out of the petals he shall denounce
the rebirth of a new rose, grow it fresh.
I am a rare rose,
but the dying kind,
so they say.
Now they are determined to find you.
Force me to speak the way they do,
I would never sing and betray you.
So run, run into the dark of the night
as I bleed and wilt into this
one chaos of a delightful plight.

You bought me two bouquets of wilted roses.
You handed them to me with that smirk on your face.
You know, the one you used to give me before you laid
your hands on me. I seen beauty in them. In fact, I had our future
in my hands.
A dozen reasons why I loved you
and a dozen reasons why we could never be.
All wrapped together by the man who abused me.
You see,
I did not throw them away.
I did not rip them apart.
Instead, I laid them to rest.
Which then
Soothed the pain from my breaking heart.

Sara I. Raad