The Rose Garden

by MidnightSun

Posted to Action Poetry on 2004-01-30 02:37:00

Nighttime
Sleeps
Through the worst travesties
Ever committed

They begin with my ending
The firebombing of Germany
They end with the violation
Of my father

I woke in a bloody sheet
Covered in my own sin

I reach for the comfort of my childhood
Lost in a bear with war torn eyes
Stuffing leaking from the gaping holes
I make my way to the bathroom

He catches me in the hallway
Bloodshot eyes
Whiskey breath
Touching my neck and smiling

I lose myself in my mind
I think of yesterday and the
Rose garden to the west
Of our house

The bright red singing
In the sunshine of yesterday
Now bloodstained nightgown
Storied for eternity

He speaks to me as if a stranger
So that I don’t know he’s my father
He speaks softly and slowly
All the while trying to touch my hair

My mind shivers, my body even more
I want to run and hide
But my fear is much stronger
I stand still as he begins to speak

Everything bleeds into a brilliant sunlight
The days fall as the leaves from the trees
I was eight back then
I am thirty now

These were the days of my childhood
The Auschwitz that burned away my youth
The instruction and introduction to society
Today is my birthday



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