I remember when I was a kid,
wondering what it would be like to be kissed.
It was a fairly pleasant imagining.
Then I remember kissing someone,
and it was all clashing teeth and saliva
and I thought that kissing was yuck
Then I remember kissing,
and my knees fell away with the world around us
Like all that was below me was a void
and all I could do was cling on for my dear life
as I wanted more and more
and yet wanted to run away from this strange feeling I had never felt before.
***
I remember reading about wars and genocide,
and thinking that was was a really really big problem
that needed to be addressed.
Even the pictures saddened me.
starving children inEthiopia my parents used to make me eat my dinner
Headlines of lovers shot to death by border guards while trying to elope left me in a state for hours.
and when the video of the Palestinian man hiding behing some sort of steel drum
valiantly using his body as a shield to protect his son emerged
my heart broke as I watched the bullets from a machine gun kill both father and son.
and then I went to Cambodia
and day by day, all I saw were limbless beggars,
bright, vivacious street imps too smart to be selling things, or themselves, on the street for less than a cent of my currency
entire blind orchestras, many limbless, co0ordinating to play for money
I saw the 'upper class' who were the shopkeepers,
willing to sell me an intricately carved pure silver bangle for AU$15
I didn't have the heart to bargain despite the fact that I knew they were ripping me off
I remember refusing to go to the main tourist attraction,
a former school transformed into a torture house during the Pol Pot regime
I spent the afternoon crying in my hotel room instead,
Crying at how anyone could do such a thing
the world of the living affecting me enough
with no wish to see the memories of the past.
Photos on the wall,
dried blood on the dirty floors
I remember our tour guide,
so grateful for his tip of fifteen American dollars for a week's work including overtime
Because five American dollars can feed a family for a week
and then I remember a German tourist who thought I was Cambodian
try to take a photo of me with his SLR as I was carried away in my van
and I realised these people had commodified their lives in order to live
Selling themselves, their souls.
Live and eke out a living away from the killing fields of bleached brittle skulls and bones piled up in rows and display cases
and like all those numerous water lilies all along the roads I saw
where storm drains should have been, were perhaps drain-ponds,
filled with dirty muddy water
where water lilies bloomed all the brighter
and now when I hear of war and genocide,
I remember what I saw
and more and more,
I realise that I want no more war
whether for ideological or economic purposes.
***
and I remember when all our morals were intact
Things right or wrong
and then you realise there is no right and no wrong and plenty of grey.
and you find yourself overstepping your own set barriers
due to 'mitigating factors'
and find that deplorable acts are suddenly understandable because you know the person behind the act
Understandable, though you may not agree with them
No one sets out to become a mistress
A thief. A drug dealer. A genocidal maniac.
and people of greatness are often not as haloed as everyone makes them out to be.
There is a price for greatness after all.
Listening to: Marc Cohn- Walking in Memphis
posted by sway @ 12:06 PM
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