travel light

* I’m honored to say that this piece was used for a “War Poetry” class by Ann Marie Thornton at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. Many thanks to her and the students for their questions and photos of them reading and discussing it. * ~ Her small angelic face ... once a place where 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, and that no sunlight will ever again visit. She is wearing her favorite dress, a pink and white seersucker pinafore, with little blue piping on the straps and hem and bib, with 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 hem is ragged, with little tears here-and-there. Her shoes were also once her favorites, but the toes are now worn through, 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 now wrapped around her left leg, above a wound that would not stop bleeding ... she has smaller wounds 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 moving in her flesh, but she was told that it was important to NOT remove them until she reaches Damascus and finds medical help ... you see, they only eat dead tissue, and will keep the wound clean. That wound is almost as big as the one on her leg, both of which she got from the IED that hit her family's car, the explosion that killed the rest of her loved ones as they escaped 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 long, and it's hard to know who to trust, as some of the adults she has met have tried to do things to her that are very wrong, but she has always been able to run away ... so far. She prays every day for someone to help her, maybe someone she knows from her town will see her and offer, but each new day just brings more strangers and more hunger and more dust and dirt. She still carries her favorite teddy bear, Amia ... it may seem a silly thing to others, but she uses it at night for a pillow, (even though the stuffing is flat and the covering is worn), and it is also stained with her mother's blood, and that is all she'll ever have of her family, and 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 she has them), Amia is all she has in the world. Well, she has memories, but even her memories have been stained and broken and drifting 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 to her at night, (she sings them to Amia now), but even those priceless memories are being devoured by hopelessness, and like her small Hello Kitty suitcase, and her hoodie, and her wallet of 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 that 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, (though hope holds little comfort), and she will remember what the ugly man who took her food and suitcase and hoodie and photos said, laughing, the brutal, angry phrase that pushes her on, "Gotta travel light, little girl ... travel light!!”