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Refugee

Tonight I awoke
To the voices
The voices that drifted through the darkness
Straight into my soul

	Yesterday I stood there, my son beside me
	As the “soldiers; dragged my neighbor
	From his home
	Into the street

	For what seemed like hours
	They beat him
	Cursed at him
	Then while he lay there
	Broken on the ground
	They chopped off his hand and foot
	With a machete
	They left him there
	In the street
	To die

	That night my son woke me up
	Screaming
	Please don’t let them get me
	He begged
	In the darkness
My wife and I gathered all we could carry
And with our son
We left the only home 
I had ever known
Not knowing where we were going
Only knowing we must leave this place
Behind

Another voice came 

	Three men came into our village
	Last month
	They took my daughter
	Along with a dozen other young girls
	They left many behind
	Slaughtered like animals

	For weeks
	My cousin and I searched
	Through the jungle
	And nearby villages
	By the grace of God
	We found my daughter
	We killed the two men who were guarding her
	Had we known what they had done to her
	Their’s would have been a much slower death 
	They had passed her between six of them
	They had made her their ‘bride”
	They deserved far worse

	I know we can not return to our village
	I know we must go far from here
	The only thing I do not know
	Is where we can go
	To be safe

One voice after another keep coming

	We have walked in the desert for 5 days now
	Some will give us water
	Others give us a place to stay
	But only for one night
	My children are hungry
	They need water
	We need a place to call home

	We made it to the border
	To where we told it would be safe
	Men in uniforms shot us with water cannons
	And tossed tear gas at us
	One of the canisters hit my son in the chest
	I am afraid he will be blind now

	They have stopped the trains
	People yell and curse at us
As we walk by
We have been walking for a week now
I am afraid my wife will not be able to walk
Much farther
I am afraid neither will I as well
What will happen to my family
When I am gone

I woke up
Drowning
In my own tears
All of these voices
Slamming my soul 
From so many directions
All of them ending with the same few words

	Where can we go
	To be safe

Ed Roberts 9/16/15

Most people do not have to look too far back in their family history to realize that the very lives of our family members often depended on the care and compassion of others. In so many ways, we are all refugees.
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