To 241

Here I am, standing in your nightmare;

looking into your eyes through decades and worlds.
How can I begin to understand what these,
the darkest of your days,
were like?

I - a Canadian, middle class, white woman.
You - who are you?

You are a young Cambodian girl,
staring at me through the photograph
used to mark your existence as a traitor.

Do you know what these words, CIA
or KGB, mean as they shout them at you
through your pain?

What is it you must confess to?
Being born in the wrong time,
under the wrong regime?

Why did they bring you here 241?

No. I cannot know you
for the simple fact that you have lived
in a different realm than I have.

You know what it is like to
feel pain so severe you pass out.
Or hunger that cannot be satiated.

You have felt a fear I have never thought possible.
A loneliness I can only dream about.
A longing for things I take for granted.

I have crossed borders and explored lands -
freely and without concern.
But Cambodia was your whole world
and it has betrayed you.

Your countrymen dreamt of a new land,
and decided you will have no part in it.

You cannot confess to crimes
you do not understand.
And for that, those comrades became
the masters of your fate.

Your eyes and your demise
are all I know of you,
and this is not enough to really know you
before you were 241.