MY HOLOCAUST

I stand before these silent walls
Head bowed in abject shame
And hold myself beneath contempt
For my love’s fate I am to blame.

Upon our arms a branded star
Once bespoke of people, soon lost
To the scourge of mass genocide
And the onset of a holocaust.

For was it long ago or yesterday
We fled the clutches of tyranny
Hunted we were like wild game
Then caged in the “ghetto” of inequity.

A loud knock upon the door
Bred fear and terror in our heart;
The day of reckoning was near at hand
And soon we would have to part.

Herded with countless suffering souls
Bound for a place I knew not where
Her words still haunt me as she left,
“Dear, save yourself …take care.”

I carried her words to the “camps”
And found a way to thrive
By sending those of my own kind
To their deaths, so I could survive.

“As you sow, so shall you reap”
So goes the wise adage,
For one day my love stood before me
As I trembled in agonized rage.

And she gazed at me with sunken eyes
As if her will was all but gone,
Then she urged gently, “It’s okay love,
Lead me to my death … go on.”

These walls stand in silent tribute
To her tortured soul, long gone
But alas! within my own mind
My “Auschwitz” lingers on … and on.

~Anwaar N. Hassan~

More Poems By Anwaar
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