Don’t forget me; I’m the detainee
By Tarif Yoyssef Agha
Don’t forget me; I’m the detainee in the dictator’s prisons,
Don’t forget me, as I suffer every day from a tremendous torture
No one knows where I am, even I don’t know,
My family is weeping for me, and I’m weeping for myself
I feel that time has stopped,
As no one knows where my location is
I know I am in a cell that looks like a grave hole,
A cell that is located in an underground corner
I don’t know what electricity is anymore,
Except when it runs through my body
The heat of summer chokes me thousands of times,
The chill of winter penetrates deep into my bones
How many times was I about to die?
How many nights did they force me to stay naked?
How many times did I wish to die?
To make the tomb my home
There is nothing worse than being buried alive,
No one, including me, knows what my fate will be
We don’t have officers in our prisons,
But professional torturers who are worse than beasts
Here, I discovered that the human being is a ghoulish creature,
And I understood how hot the fire was
They torture me every day to revenge what
Muawya’s son did to Al-Hussein (happened 1400 years ago)
What makes me feel awful is that,
In my country, I’m treated as the enemy
And those who talk my language are
Worse than the worst oppressor
Their souls have no consciences,
And their hearts have no mercy
Don’t forget me; I’m the detainee in the dictator’s prisons,
Torture and humiliation are all I have here
***
A Poem translation
(Can be shared without permission)
By Tarif Youssef-Agha
An Expatriate Arab Syrian Writer & Poet
Member of the ‘Syrian Revolutionary Writers Assembly’
Friday December 18, 2015, Houston, Texas
This poem is a tribute to the souls of hundreds of thousands of the detainees in Assad’s jails, who were murdered or are still suffering the horrified treatments of the barbaric regime
http://sites.google.com/site/tarifspoetry