PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

        Tender thoughts of family members who once held your calloused hands in theirs, who would gently pat your head and run their slender fingers through your bristled hair, race through your mind. Their endlessly reassuring, beaming smiles that always brightened your sunken face remain forever etched in you. You can even still reflect on the pacifying melodies of their voices through the incessantly escalating moans of discomfort and the roar of debasing commands that work on you like a jackhammer. Let's hope memories can sustain us. Sentiment replaces sustenance, and interchanges with security.



            Flesh tightens as memory enables you to relive being tucked away behind your Mother's flowing skirt with your twin brother, the fringe dancing on your forearm. The ground felt so bitterly cold. The cause announced itself with brilliantly polished shoes clapping against the concrete floor. They supported a man in a tidily pressed tunic, his kind and welcoming visage conveying nothing of his intentions. Something was amiss. The entire block seemed to chill. Jovially spinning his riding crop, he paced between the rows of anxious and awe-struck Jews. “Zwillinge! Zwillinge!" he bellowed.

            The towering figure called out all sets of twins. He was Dr. Josef Mengele, new to Auschwitz. The thrill of being identified as anything aside from a number made you impulsively scuttle forward, your left hand latched to your sibling's. Shortly thereafter, you'd learn the insurmountable trouble of being distinguished as anything besides more scheiße.



… to be continued …