On a red sore train
I wonder what I will leave
Behind when I am gone
And only dead words
And the memories of others
Can breathe life
Into all I once knew
Once consoled myself with.
Consoled myself for burning time
An unknown trauma that has no photos
No documents. Only
A childhood of madness.
Tears in rain. No joie de vivre.
But I learnt about life
Inside the old asylums
All sold off now
Like the school I left
To dive without lessons
Into the blue of a shoreless ocean.
And I swam. I survived
If only to give this testimony.
Now like Tiresias
I poke the sacrifice in the flames.
In its ashes, augury.
Alone, I see the shame.
Turn away, but see nothing
But my errant mind.
Yet, it is enough.
