Chant Of A Refugee

Being here hurts. But here I am.
I am not growing or changing,
I am rotting away my roots.
And my roots hurt.
There was war,
I waived goodbye to devastation.
The sun came.
It came and the storm was gone (or so it seemed).
I drifted from place to place looking and searching
For the world I once knew.
I shouted and was not heard
I cried and was not rescued.
And then I was lost.

Much has changed in all these years.
I alone did not.
My age became the monster and
In the monster I changed,
Only the eyes are the same.
That’s how I am since 1975.
Fighting my own war.
I, with a name they cannot pronounce.
Much has changed since.
This monster alone that is my age did not.
They talk about me and say: she is a fighter
(Do not know whether by being dead or because I have not died yet)
But nobody told me why it hurts being here.

Milú, Sydney 2002