THE CHRYSALIS OF GENOCIDE
I entered the Genocide like a caterpillar, trudging many-legged along death march branches and leaves that shine like no water desert shores
I pulled the latter part of myself forward with my forward-most self, truncating and expanding with every pull, as I passed through worn out biways of decimated villages over and over again
But, before the blade and the hoof and maniacal laughter and the rape and hanging, I was something else altogether
I was and I was not this me you have come to know with long fingered hands, now gnarled, holding you across generations in loving care, making Choreg and Sini Kofteh and Tanabour, a twinkle in deep brown eyes, comporting with dignity a lifetime of trouble and beauty
I had no self consciousness to haunt me in my Arshoun summers, before the impossible occurred
Lolling in the tall grass while Chalo would nuzzle me under the chin and chase birds and snap at dragonflies in the air near the creek, Naked swimming in ice cool waters, Mother’s smile burning my palette eating Klorig soup too fast
But, even before it started, I could feel fields of energy expand and contract rapidly like manic dilating pupils of the mad and fanatic
And, I knew everything would change forever, but I did not know that they would make a new dead me out of me and make me see myself as they did
They obliterated me and killed off all my loves and all semblance of me ended
And, I entered the Genocide like a caterpillar, unbeknownst to anyone, especially to my no-self, to emerge transmogrified, winged and scarred, and beautiful, into a different kind of something else all together
I had no name for this or for myself
I had lost my name and found a self that became mine, but I could not find me
Every step I took, every thing I did not eat, every tooth I lost, every rock I sucked and swallowed, every weed I chewed and every dead body I caressed, wove the unsilken cocoon of my future, even though I knew not what that meant or what it could mean, for there was no such tense or time or any incomprehensible word that had any meaning
What was the color of the sword slashed stomach? What petal pink was the tint of torn and broken feet? What hue did light take on jaundiced skin? What shade of violet does begin rot and what is the caterpillars mask in the dying light before its rises from blood and dirt to become the survivor you didn’t really know, but whose Choregs you still miss even now as you, too, and your memory of yourself and of me are murdered again 100 years later and more, in all those same blood-soaked places, while so many of your brethren glibly insist, from laps of luxury, that the enemy has failed and that we are, in fact, free
—akm
© Ara Mgrdichian
I pulled the latter part of myself forward with my forward-most self, truncating and expanding with every pull, as I passed through worn out biways of decimated villages over and over again
But, before the blade and the hoof and maniacal laughter and the rape and hanging, I was something else altogether
I was and I was not this me you have come to know with long fingered hands, now gnarled, holding you across generations in loving care, making Choreg and Sini Kofteh and Tanabour, a twinkle in deep brown eyes, comporting with dignity a lifetime of trouble and beauty
I had no self consciousness to haunt me in my Arshoun summers, before the impossible occurred
Lolling in the tall grass while Chalo would nuzzle me under the chin and chase birds and snap at dragonflies in the air near the creek, Naked swimming in ice cool waters, Mother’s smile burning my palette eating Klorig soup too fast
But, even before it started, I could feel fields of energy expand and contract rapidly like manic dilating pupils of the mad and fanatic
And, I knew everything would change forever, but I did not know that they would make a new dead me out of me and make me see myself as they did
They obliterated me and killed off all my loves and all semblance of me ended
And, I entered the Genocide like a caterpillar, unbeknownst to anyone, especially to my no-self, to emerge transmogrified, winged and scarred, and beautiful, into a different kind of something else all together
I had no name for this or for myself
I had lost my name and found a self that became mine, but I could not find me
Every step I took, every thing I did not eat, every tooth I lost, every rock I sucked and swallowed, every weed I chewed and every dead body I caressed, wove the unsilken cocoon of my future, even though I knew not what that meant or what it could mean, for there was no such tense or time or any incomprehensible word that had any meaning
What was the color of the sword slashed stomach? What petal pink was the tint of torn and broken feet? What hue did light take on jaundiced skin? What shade of violet does begin rot and what is the caterpillars mask in the dying light before its rises from blood and dirt to become the survivor you didn’t really know, but whose Choregs you still miss even now as you, too, and your memory of yourself and of me are murdered again 100 years later and more, in all those same blood-soaked places, while so many of your brethren glibly insist, from laps of luxury, that the enemy has failed and that we are, in fact, free
—akm
© Ara Mgrdichian
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