I’m in Phnom Penh with 3 uni mates I hardly know.
Just 21, with the world unfurling before us,
we head straight to the tourist attractions.
Shelf after shelf of skulls line the book case.
and i cannot turn away from the 10,000 eyes,
eye sockets,
trained on me.
The space so quiet
terror walks up from behind me
to gaze at the displays together with me,
and then at me.
The years telescope back to 78, 79,
a black and white TV,
playing a film -
where side by side
a child toddles in a HDB flat, a gummy smile across her face, before falling into her parents' arms
while a young girl, in the middle of a silent scream,
falls back into a pit, here,
her skull extracted and displayed now on this shelf.
As I walk on through other 'attractions'
my mind is seared
with the grinning skulls,
in turn accusing me and forgiving me, holding me
still.
‐----
the process
1. can I write about this?
my actual shock was the dismay that the country has suffered so much, that its tourist attractions were remnants of its bloody history, proudly advertised alongside other attractions like parks and gardens.
2. the shock at learning this country, in my backyard, had such a bloody history that I knew nothing about till that day. I knew of wwii and its horrors, far away in Europe but not here. I was ashamed, humbled
3. the shock that this happened a mere 20 years ago when I was so happy toddling and babbling in a walker. that these people right next door were dying. I felt guilty. at the different life i had been blessed to have thru no specific moves on my part. just luck of the draw that I lived here and they lived there. and more guilty I had not known about its bloody history. that I had not the courtesy to even know.
so how do I write about all this. the poem hardly captures enough .
21 is a great age to travel. you think you know so much and then find out you know so little.
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