Giddy with the thrill of an unplanned holiday,
I’m in Phnom Pen with 3 Americans 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.
My reflection stares back at me
in a space so quiet
terror walks up behind me
to gaze at the displays together with me,
and then at me.
The years telescope back to 1978, 1979.
I see myself babbling, gurgling,
falling into parents' arms
while women and children fall back into pits here.
Was there a sound?
My own mind is a black and white TV,
playing a silent horror film -
where side by side
a child toddles in a HDB flat, a one toothed grin in place, and a young girl, mouth open and distorted, falls into a pit here,
her skull extracted and displayed now on this shelf.
I walk away, gutted
mind seared still
with the grinning skulls.
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