Men came out
Women emerged
No children
The children were gone
What happened the first month?
Outside bars and cement
Away from gas chamber
When legs and arms, mere bone
Unshackled could move once more
How
Did you pick up your lives then?
Learn the grace of living
No one has ever said
Something so horrific cannot be vented
It can only transform into fire
from survival we are born, once more
A second life
Not a child, not young
Nor unscathed, but covered in scars
They are our metal, winking silver and rose
We do not stand in new bones
But those that know the feeling of kneeling
Begging for the end to come
And when it did not
When we survived
Despite their best attempt to smother
It is a land of ash and terror
To navigate and put back together
Those shattered pieces of self
Willing meaning from devestation
How?
With the blood of ancestors, fresh
Seeing them led to their deaths
Courage in silence, in suffering
How?
When nothing is left but the last straw
And it erupts into flame, burning everything you were
How?
Do you design again a day, a week, a year?
With a face enured by fear
Used to screaming in the dark
How?
To go past the horror and walk into a new life?
We do it by taking the broken pieces of us
Head in the oven, wrists slashed in bathroom
Pill bottles strewn about like flotsum
All our aborted attempts to shut the terror out
We take the gore and the furnace
The golem and the hangman
In our minds eye we stand among graves
Tasting human ash whilst behind us chambers cough out families
And if that doesn’t kill us
Nothing ever will
Because when you stand on the far side of fear
Your heart extinguished and cold, a lifeless thing
There is only survival
We are the feral leftovers
We rebuilt ourselves from nothing
Like from clay we came, so again, a second coming
To defy the proximity of evil
We are the ones who refused to cease
Standing when nothing held us up
But the necessity of being
(For all who perished in the death camps and all who survived.)
TheFeatheredSleep 
A harrowing read dear Candice.. You are shedding the scars by releasing them in words.. learning to’live in Grace’, as you pick up the pieces of those shards which cut so deep..
My heart is always sending.. as you negotiate your healing journey
Love and Blessings my friend.. ❤
Sue xxx
You evoke such feelings always, but this is……… I’m not going to use my lesser words for something so beautiful x
A powerful testament to survival. Most most moving . . .
Thank you for this today:)
❤
Beautiful, intense, sad – mysteries of survival
Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
From The Feathered Sleep, a memorial of the Holocaust – questions applicable to horrors still ongoing across the world
Horror and survival thrown boldly in our faces. And still today we must go on. Your words say it all…
Reblogged this on theherdlesswitch and commented:
This poem by ‘thefeatheredsleep’ is so well written. Dark, thoughtful, and hopeful all at the same time…
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Thank you for this post, Candice. We must never forget the horrors of what humans can do to other humans. We must be reminded often so that such atrocities will become a thing of the past around the world, with all peoples. Masterful writing once again. 💙💕
You have that rare connection a poet gets, connecting them to truth, to feelings, destinies … stories waiting in the ashes to be told. Perhaps it is a racial mind, as Jung described. Wherever it’s roots, your voice speaks well of it. Candy does not sugar coat her words.
Spine chilling!
Your customary compassion shining through
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P, that really is a wonderful comment and I needed it. Thank you my friend. I do agree w Jung on racial memory.
🙂
Thank you dear girl, for reading and encouragement 💓💓💓
Thanks so much lovely 💓💓💓
Thanks so much dear lady 💓💓💓
Thanks for the reblog it is very appreciated 💓💓💓
Thanks so much!
Been sick again sister but intending to write you back sorry for taking a while 💓💓💓
Peter, coming from you, that means so much.
Thanks so very much dear C 💓
The story of the Jews will always be harrowing but never forget 💓💓💓
❤ no dear Candice, I will not my friend xx ❤
Just wow! This is so deeply gut wrenching and moving, so rich, so powerful, so so agonising. “the feeling of kneeling”. ❤ ❤
Cellular imprints in genetic DNA is really probably what Carl Jung understood as the collective unconsicous, the deep sea and water is imprinted by that pain deep in cells and we are cells of cells of cells all in a vast ocean. I love this poem as it touches on that in such a poweful way. 🙂
This lines got me thinking beyond my capacity of understanding:
“Men came out
Women emerged
No children
The children were gone”
I love your masterpieces, they get me thinking.
Thank you!!!!
I’m sorry to hear you’ve been sick, sister. Take your time in writing back. Sending you positive energies now…xo
I proudly carry the blood of my Ashkenazi Jewish relatives . Thank you for writing this
Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
We are related 💓💓💓
Thought of you when I read this dear girl http://www.athleta.net/2016/12/26/at-98-the-worlds-oldest-yogi-shares-her-wisdom/
😉 !
Thanks so very much 💓💓💓
❤
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Wow! That was amazing!!!! I got chills from head to toe! Thank you dear friend. I needed to see that wise old lady’s eyes tonight. Been going through a bit of a rough patch. Thanks so much xo sending love to you xo
She gives us what we all most need. Hope. I wish that for you and healing. When I got sick I doubted the natural medicine and lifestyle I felt betrayed by it but I was wrong. Illness doesn’t mean it didn’t work. Faith in the process is how we get well. We know conventional means are mostly toxic. But we are human too. I wish you renewal and healing light. I know your spirit is STRONG.