| Lise McCleerey Until They Came for Me With poisoned words on honeyed lips they told us these others weren't quite human. They'd killed Christ, our leaders proclaimed, and for their reward they should be punished just the same. With sugar coated promises of a purer race and a happier people, we were told to turn these others away. They weren't part of the master plan of the flag with a black spider in it's midst. Like flies we flew to the spider that told of a utopia sure to come. When they cried out for help we turned up Mozart and hummed as if we couldn't hear. They weren't coming for our children so why should we care? We moved to a bigger apartment and paid nothing more at all. The costs were previously paid by our people being beaten down to the greed of these non-humans. So, we just changed the sheets and pretended we'd always lived there. But then they came for us, and suddenly we realized the injustices of the time, and we cried to our neighbors for help. They turned up Mozart and hummed, preparing to move. Knowing Her Here I smiled remembering her windowsill flower gardens. She was more proud of those than of anything else in her life, even her kids, I use to think. I have a lot of time to contemplate her now. I felt fortunate that I knew someone from the old neighborhood here. She was definitely a person I enjoyed knowing. She could talk flowers till we forgot that we were in hell, and could actually see ourselves in a field of wild Mums, Buttercups or Peonies. I often stood still and danced in those fields with my mind for the hours that we stood with ash falling on our bodies. It helped me forget, I suppose. She, actually, helped me forget. She also helped me remember. I remembered we were humans, and this was going to end soon. The world would realize what was happening to us and come marching down the road to save us from this public/private hell. She told us that she knew that it was almost over, to have hope. So, we hoped, to help her believe. We found ourselves actually starting to believe in spite of our circumstances too. At attention in the yard we found ourselves looking down the road, hoping to be the first to see our salvation marching toward these barbed-wire fences. She laughed at the Selections, saying that she'd always wondered what it would be like to be a "Loose Woman." We laughed too, despite our embarrassment at baring ourselves to prying eyes that hoped to find a flaw in our emaciated bodies. We smiled hiding the tears as our friends and family were picked the "Chosen One's." It must have been the infected flee bites that selected her for extermination. We still smiled as we watched her lead away. The ash still falls at our feet as we stand at attention. I like to think that the special ash that was my friend fell on the flowers outside of the fence. She loved the flowers. Not nearly as much, we found, as we loved her. Silent Scars She wore long sleeves in summer. An oddity, to say the least. They gawked and laughed creating internal wounds, unknowing that she hid external scars and bruses from our sight. She brought excuses in for gym so she didn't have to show us her body. They thought that she wanted to get out of P.E. and made her mother write bogus "health deterring" notes. She sat in the bleachers and stared at us wistfully. We never knew she longed to run and play with us. They teased her and I silently agreed. Never realizing that physical scars would fade in time, but wounds we created would never heal. |