Popular Poems About Shame

I die a thousand tiny deaths
Each time I hear his voice
Memories of how I waited in anticipation
My heart beating erratically
Beats of sweat rolling between peaks and valleys
My breath in staccato before he opened my door
The sounds our bodies made
As he brought me to unimaginable heights of pleasure
My tear stained pillow when he left
My life on hold as I yearned for his return
The cycle of shame, damnation and denial each time I walked away
Then went back
The jolt I felt
When I saw that my yearning had turned into...

I hope you know I’m thinking of you,
while you lie in that cold, fluorescent haze,
counting the cracks in the ceiling,
listening to the hum of a world
that keeps moving without you.
I know how it feels.
I know how the walls whisper
like they want to keep you forever.
I know how the silence
can be louder than the screams
that got you there in the first place.

I’ve been there too.
More times than I care to count.
I know the weight of a locked door,
the way time slows down
until it feels like you’re drowning in days...

Buchenwald, Dachau, Auschwitz,
Dead eyes in discarded human piles,
Striped pyjamas, delousing, Mein Kampf,
Hard to believe anyone was oblivious.

The crematorium, smell of singed hair, bone and fat,
Barbed wire pen, under the gaze of the gun tower.
Blow of the rifle butt, as the
Camp Band played on…

Suicide by electrified barbed wire,
Or exit through the chimney.
Barrow loads of the naked dead,
Identities reduced to inked numbers.

Never Forget,
Never Forget,
Never Forget,
Never Forget.