A Poem for Rizana Nafeek (A Sri Lankan domestic worker sentenced to death by beheading in Saudi Arabia)

Today the sky cast
a different shade of blue
Dimness, daylight, doves and tears
tells me I must do something for you,
Rizana...

Precious Rizana,my fellow Overseas Contract Worker,
lend me your ear as I speak,
hear the words from my heart that cares
to share your unfathomable throes.

I care for you
and the cries of your heart,
your adolescent heart that never
fully experienced the freedom of a teenager
because of poverty, hunger...

You embraced the responsibility that somehow
belongs to your parents but I know,
I truly understand it all;
the pain behind the sentiments between cycle and role
of poverty...

Behind those bars,
inside those walls
I can see you;
A lone white dove
with fractured wings
that was never taught to sing
unjustly
sentenced to death…….
By the most barbaric means

How heartbreaking is that scene?
You left your home for your family
and there you lay with a cold blank stare
away, so, so far away from home,
inside that cold prison, wither
by the fear, sorrow, pains, longing
of a daughter to hug her mother
of a daughter to kiss his father
of a sister....
that will soon became part of the history?

As the air grew thin
with the smell of death and fear
I felt the freezing cold
rushing through my veins
upon holding the rugs and brooms
both arduous and distressing
as tears escape twin streams of my soul.

I saw the executioner on my pc screen,
the rituals,
the swords,

I heard and listened to his testimony
word by word
like cutting daggers pressed into my heart.

So is this how it’s going to end?
Rizana...

Visions of sky turned black
as the twilight came
and the concluding curtain fell
for you..
at a very young age,
a hero to her family,
to the OCW's...
is so unacceptable. cruel…

I will pray for you
Rizana....
I, Airyn

Missing Home,Missing Philippines (From the heart of a Domestic Worker)

Fragrant joy
of better days
gone.

Here i am again
Trying to relive the sweet memories
of me and my family,

Here i am..
hurting more and more,
fading away like a word
from the lump of the world,
dimming away from the lights
of the only lamp hanging tonight
on the roof of the earth.

Such pain I pulled
out my painful days,my painful days...
they were devoured with pain...

On this cutting time,
the inimicable
element
of the wind's wave,
drags me to the core of te darkness.

My exhausted hands
pulsing...
the only spiraling lights
from the memories of better days...
Gone!

Gone...like the hardships that i had whispered
and carried out to the wind
the one that they easily forgotten
cast...left to the unknown

Gone...gone were those days
i felt like I'm a best kept secret
or a spider hunting,
phoenix rising...

for i was left alone;
a tangled helpless fly,
a mouse clutched in its claws...
ojust a filthy lie...

Lie,such a sad word
I lied if i say,"im okay"
Why?

I am trapped among the debris
that humanity ardently embraces
in twisted virtue abd principles...

Since the day the sole of my feet touched
the busy land of Hong Kong
until now...
I am nothing...

Yes,I am nothing to the one's
who never heared my cries
but rather rejoice,feasting while
drinking the wines of their Gods-Carlo Rossi,
working to death,
stuck in the darkness...
But i know...

Within this darkness lies the rays of the moonlight
illuminating the picture of my aunt,
my siblings and my father...

Back in our little home,
in my beloved homeland:
Philippines....

In there I am everything!

By the River of Shatin

I found no darkness tonight

for you are sitting next to me...

Most precious breath of the night;

Mi Amor,

I am inhaling you inside me...

The sound of your voice;

My love,

penetrates my deep cuts;

cleansed them by its spellbinding ways...

On this parapsychological night

strange indeed,but

I astonishingly found myself

placed so gentle in a moment

well-founded than the Order of the Garter.

Oh love,heavens bless us tonight!

Each nerves,each bones of mine

performs its task in harmony with my heartbeat,

so gentle everytime your mellow touches fill me.

Just looking st you tonight,

each facet of your being

is an enthrallment...

Everytime your zealous eyes stare at me

It kindle the fire of courage in my within

to be the best woman that i can be

for you...

I am uniquely entrapped

to the echanter of such person as you

And never will i wish some metamorphosis of time...

For tonight,

from this very moment...

I willingly,not under orders will stay this way

In love with you for eternity

Mi Amor.

--

I AM NOT LIKE YOU

(This was written for a girl whose father poured acid over her face and body when she was 10 months old)


No matter how beautiful
is that Gumamela you're attaching
lovingly on my ears, sister
I will never be like you.


Look at me from head to foot
I am wrapped with the hatred
every ugly thing that could latch onto
the very nerves of our father


Somehow he has still a little love left
to keep me alive and live
like a monster,
Obviously not like you...


Sometimes when I gaze in the mirror
the thought of living normally
carries my hopes away
to the unknown depths of solitude


I try to see what is not there
something that is not what the reflection reveals
and the smile that seems so distant


Under the lashes of my eyes
is a picture of my heart's desire
A father that tells her daughter
"you shouldn't be sad because i love you".


Hold my hand sister and feel
my pulse racing with my heartbeat
Mind swamped with cold treatment


Hold tight sister and let down the fog
The bitterness and shame Dad had bestowed me
after he poured the acid on my face and body
when i was ten months old.


Feel me sister,
let our pulses blend, like real gold
Although I am not like you...


The sea of perception yawns like hell
Every time it sees me...
Me and my ogre-like self...


Because i am not like you
and i will never be.

TESTIMONY OF A SEXUALLY ABUSED CHILD

(This was based on a true story told by an abused girl named Steph)



TESTIMONY OF A SEXUALLY ABUSED CHILD


As i've watched the little flowers bloom
Thine be the gladness and mine be the doom
In solitude,the memories revived
The diabolical and grievous hell i had survived.


It all started when i was five
All the heavenly things and the earth were alive
Not until my mother pass away
Then an infinite feeling of inferno stirred me.


The misery and degredation entwined
Hobble all things with monstrousness behind
As the atrocious whispers float in the hill
My brother stand next to me,naked and still.

Father commanded him to stroke his snake
And if i refuse he smack my bottom and raped me himself
All the crystal and marble ive treasured suddenly break
Worst was my brother enjoyed to repeat it on quick.

I battled as ive crossed the thread of suffering
I had drowned my fears to the light approaching
CHILDLINE came and rolled the black clouds
My father was jailed but my travail ever growls loud.
 
 
 
 
(This poem was written after i read STEPH'S story.How horrible she had gone through in the hands of his father and brother,she courageously speak out in the Child Abuse Effects.)

The Hong Thai Bus Hostage Siege Tragic Ending

Oftentimes i write biting cuts,
Wounds without any trace of blood
Hidden in the shadows of emptiness
Underneath the skyline of scolding sky.


But as the air tightens on this 23rd of August
I know it''ll be different


In our little flat which we called home
Antipathy bubbles in the air
Our tired eyes from sailing all day
Never blink for a moment
Stewed to the scene played on the TV's screen.


The people from the land that adopted me
Were chained to the mournful hymns of the night;
Gunfires from M16 riffle burn the small palings of hope
Left on the edge of their doom.


Oh people whom I've come to love
I can hear your heartwrenching wails
I can feel the trembling of your nerves
Across the miles,through sharp winds.


Oh people of my beloved home,
Greetings to the one who shares the cup of agony with me,
I am here alone,loved and accepted by the blood
The common blood of the ones murdered by the man,
The son of the motherland which nurtured me.


Are you feeling the shame too
On how the uniformed men acting dross for hours?
Have you suddenly felt the changing of colors
From vibrant to gray to black?


Perhaps you would...
We would...
The whole world would...
As we watch how the victim;
The poor soul collapses on the left front door
How the bullet unlock the handcuff
That chained him there...


Should we sigh,moan or lament
To the bloody end of the hostage siege?


Oh tragedy,you are like rocks that cruelly rebuff
The aeonian flow of life's waves


Such sufferance slip into coma
Any heart i bet would agree
When you saw the immeasurable pain
On the tip of her lips
In every movement of her eyelids,
A woman,widowed
A mother now daughterless
A light of the hause,without a son to light up with
Because he is in the ICU,battling for life and death.


In a blink of an eye,Nine lives lost
Eagles soar high to wipe the copper cheeks of heaven
But its deep scar constantly drips the vital fluid
Bare to the eyes of the intrusive world


The root of contrtemps remains unknown
Had perished with the ghost of the captor


And the mystery of the tragedy
Awefully remains wodunit
Leaving a fatal wound to the most.

Untitled

In every angles and curves

of the silent mountains

rest many tales

waiting to be told



And in its every shade

lies the shadows,

the stories of people

yet to unfold



Mine is one among the many

an ordinary biography,unnoticed

Oftentimes i caught myself

writing a journal of scathing emptiness,

drudging myself in my emmolient cave.



Each rocks and curves

were made up of prison cells with nippy windows



Like all mortals,i've been there

I've seen the birth of flowers in the morning

and witnessed the falling of its petals

in the drunkenness of the night



Midnights were the reasons for my untimely death

The shadows turned black and became one with the darkness



I can hear my sighs inside me

My heavy footsteps on the whim



Mine is a world of penance,sacrifice and work...

and wrods are my companion,

the glow in the dark to my bleary heart

to survive the...

yet another tormented nights full of cries.