1- I am nobody


 

When they tell me I am different, I believe them.

I have no choice.

I am German; but I am not German.

I cannot be a Jew. So I am no one.

I might have been someone once, the way my father was someone, like my mother was, when people used the word Jew like a curse, to shoo away like fleas, and to be a flea feels bad, but better than being no flea at all.

We breathe air they wish us not to breathe, and so make us breathe what is not air, and singe us to dust so that we have no lungs to breathe anything at all.

Dust takes up less space than flesh does.

Even when we do the digging, someone must cast the last batch, which is why they keep some of us alive.
But I have already buried myself, knowing that I do not exist, and refuse to breathe too deeply for fear I might breathe in dust.

It is possible I might turn to dust myself at any moment.



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