travel light -

Her small angelic face ... Once a place where broad smiles bloomed like butterflies on marigolds, is streaked with the furrows that countless tears have etched into the layers of dust and dirt and explosive residue that now paints her skin, like the branches and courses the mighty Nile has carved into the ages. Her sweet little-girl voice, that in better times was the conduit of joyous laughter born straight from her belly, is now hoarse and scratchy from the screams and cries that follow every explosion and rattle of gunfire, and every vision of horror that reality serves up each day instead of food. But no matter - she has little need to speak anymore. Those amazingly blue eyes - as azure as any summer sky, and once sparkling like sun-pixies dancing on the wave-tops of the Mediterranean - now stare ahead with vacant darkness, a shadow that only hopelessness and apathy can cast. Like her beloved baby doll, Amia, (stolen from her days earlier), there is no spark of hope or life dancing in her gaze, just the watery shimmer of sadness, always on the edge of tears. She is wearing her favorite dress, a pink and white seersucker pinafore, with little blue piping on the straps. The hem and bib have the same trimming, but much of it is missing, or hanging, torn. She wears a sharp-creased white blouse Underneath, though it has been a long time since it LOOKED white. One of the straps is almost worn through, and the dress has little tears here-and-there. Her shoes were also once her favorites, but the toes are now balding, and the saddle-shoe tones of white and tan are gone, covered with dried mud and scrapes. The beautiful pink polka-dot ribbon she had in her hair is wrapped around her left leg, on a wound that would not stop bleeding. She has smaller wounds and scrapes on her legs and arms, and one on her head that is very bothersome, as it is filled with maggots - she hates the feeling of them squirming in her flesh, but she was told that it was best to NOT remove them until she reaches Damascus and medical help. You see, maggots only eat dead tissue, and will keep the wound clean until she can receive proper treatment. That wound is almost as big as the one on her leg, both were from an IED that killed the rest of her loved- ones as they were trying to escape the fighting on the road from Raqqa. That seems so long ago to her now - years ago in her mind - and she has been walking ever since. Sometimes people are kind to her and give her food, or watch out for her for a while, but it never lasts for long, and it's hard to know who to trust, as everyone else is desperate, too. Sadly, some of the adults she has met have tried to do bad things to her, but she has always been able to run away ... so far. She prays daily for an angel - maybe someone from her town that will offer help, but each new day just brings more strangers and hunger ... more dust and dirt. She holds close to her mother's burqa ... it may seem a silly thing to others, but it was made by her grandmother, and she uses it at night for a pillow, (folding it over-and-over) ... it is also stained with her mother's blood, and that is all she'll ever have of her family now, so it is precious to her. Other than a package of bubble gum in her pocket, and some dog biscuits that she nibbles on at night, (hidden in her underwear - others will steal them if they know about them), the burqa is all she has in the world. Well, she has memories, but those memories are now stained and broken, too. Even her best memories are beginning to drift away with the dust and hunger and horror ... she strains now to remember the faces and voices of her family, especially her mother's voice singing lullabies, (she sang them to Amia before she was taken), but even those things are abandoning her. Those priceless memories are slowly-but-surely being devoured by the maw of hopelessness, and like her small Hello Kitty suitcase, her hoodie, her wallet of family photos, and the package of food she left with, it has all been taken by those who saw her as opportunity, not one needing help. But war does strange things to people, she's told, war changes people. So, for now, she keeps walking and praying, and she will TRY to hope that she reaches Damascus and medical care, (though she has learned that hope holds little comfort), but safety isn't guaranteed her there, either ... And she will remember what the ugly man who took her food and suitcase and hoodie and photos said to her ... the brutal, angry phrase that some- how helps to push her on, when her feet are blistered, and her bones are aching, and her eyes and nostrils burn, and her spirit is empty and broken ... The cold thing he said to her, laughing, when he took her doll Amia, (for his own little girl), and everything she had left in the world ... "Gotta travel light, little girl ... travel light!" ~ 5th Place ~ in the "JP Contest 6: War and Heroism Poetry Contest", Jamie Pan, Judge & Sponsor. ~ 2nd Place ~ in the "Travel Light Poetry Contest", Kai Michael Neumann, Judge & Sponsor. * This was written about the conflict in the Middle East, and the courage of a little orphan girl, who is trying to survive on the road from ISIS-held Raqqa to safety in Damascus. I am honored to say that Cambridge/Oxford alum, Professor Ann-Marie Thornton, used this poem to teach a series of classes in her War Poetry Class at Bilkent University, in Ankara, Turkey, April and May, 2017. Many thanks to her and her wonderful students! *