Song of Inherited Grief

At the behest of these children, I curse the guilty. To honour the memory of those who have suffered here, we sit quietly together under a yew tree. They say:

“Quietly whispering, we sat in our rooms, sometimes dark and cold, sometimes filled with laughter. We wondered what would happen to us and where we would go. Why we were here and who was responsible for our tragedy. The questions were never answered or spoken. The palate they had was strange to us, mushy and bland, we ate because we had to. We didn’t know any better or when things would change. We felt anxious and scared. We were afraid to show affection, hold each-other, speak our words. The strange pictures that lined the dark brown walls meant nothing to us, we knew they were untrue. We didn’t believe the loud voices singing hymns, these sounds were strange noises to us. We didn’t learn about love, we learned about punishment for things we didn’t do and never knew. And we felt despair in a place with no hope. The best times we had were when we were allowed to be alone, in the pauses between lifeless lessons and conversations that didn’t belong to us. We hid away, we cried. When we were together, sometimes in those quiet moments alone, we knew we were somehow still real. It hurt when blood spilled out quietly from our bodies and we were stained. There was always a presence of silence, a ghost, always nearby. We worked outside as the trains went by and the noise of strange men filled the air on top of the hill. The bells rang, our daily memorial for the lives we will have lost soon and the memories of home that would never come for us. Our truth is that we were never meant to be here. We wanted to be happy, we wanted to eat and swim and play our games. We didn’t ask for what happened to us.”

What words do you want to shine in the sky for you?

“The forgiveness that is taught, the triangle that was created to bestow cruelty, the perished memorial, and the ground we lie in…may those who took us and those who murdered us live the way we died every day and may death be so kind as to never come for them. There is no justice for us who are silent in our graves, there is no tumultuous wait, there is silence and fear that covers our souls when all that is left for us is to suffer without bodies and watch the next generation pray for the sins that were never ours. And so…may those who have learned to take from us be buried in their own blood and never die, and may our words in the sky shine on them like the everlasting morning sun that they so quietly tried to bury behind the horizon. The triangle that ruled us then, rules you now. May the cruelty done upon us be your shining beacon into the undying lands of every corner of this creation.”

The vomit and war that spring eternal from the fountains of false human teachings, will come back to take every one of those who have taken part in what was done to these children. Unspeakable pain. Unspeakable violence. These are the last hours before morning when the swords come out. This time, they will be of the new world.

At the behest of each moment of pain they endured, on behalf of their torn bodies and broken lives that crumbled yet tried to survive every day that they lived and every day that they died, may you never know laughter, the way they never did after you came, may you suffer quietly, the way they did for the rest of their lives, may every heart of everyone in your dynasties break for seven generations to come…