Have You Ever?

Imagine thirty creatures
Remotely resembling women
In a dark filthy kennel of a cell
With a toilet bowl and
A dirty sink shared by all.

Everyone is shivering with cold.
No vacant room on the stone bench.
Some snore on the concrete floor.
Others step on them when
Passing by and swear.

No hair pins, no shoe laces,
No garbage containers either.
Twice a day they get liquid food
Which tastes like nothing.
Disposed cups are all over the place.

Every now and then
The disturbing iron door is opened
And a name is called out.
Mischievous clicking of handcuffs
Drives everyone crazy.

If it takes a woman too long to get
To her feet as her joints become
Unbearably stiff, they would not wait
And take somebody else, forgetting about her
For a long humiliating while.

Screwed drug-longing bodies
Of whores and thieves scream with spasm.
Ache and fatigue dim their eyes down.
Devastated souls vaguely remember life.
Have you ever been through this hell?

Farida Samerkhanova  lives in Toronto, Ontario.  Her letters to the editor have appeared in the magazines Elle Canada, Canadian Stories and Canadian Immigrant. Within the past few years, her poems, short stories, and essays have been published in numerous publications.

To inquire about Farida Samerkhanova’s work, e-mail farida203@yahoo.com.

Bosnian Syndrome

Distorted mind can
Play tricks.

Taming sick memories
Is not that easy.

The long ugly war
Is still haunting.

The tracks of his tank
Used to ruin lives.

Shaking hands with devil
Was not a big deal.

Guilt pushed him
Across the ocean.

Distorted mind
Is still playing tricks.

Behind Bars

I used to work hard shovelling hot coal
All through the night and it felt like hell.
At that time I didn’t know what hell really was like.

Hostile silence of the city at dawn
Would be interrupted by whining of my children
On the concrete floor of the balcony.
I would rush up the stairs, hug my son
And look into the scared eyes of my daughter.
Their mother would be partying somewhere
With her lover. Our little ones were freezing
Outside, waiting for her. She didn’t care.

I warmed them up with hot milk,
Took both to bed and told them a fairy tale
About their beautiful mom, who
Had to work long hours and make money
To buy toys and sweets for her kids.
They would listen, calm down and fall asleep.

Once she invented a story about her ominous
Husband (that would be me)
To make space for her new boyfriend and
On a gloomy drizzling morning
The police came to my home.
They cuffed me up in front of my children.

…I watched my cellmates playing soccer
Through the fog of my memories
That kept invading my head ever since
I had been isolated from everything normal.
I wished I could smoke away
The whirlpool of disturbing thoughts.

When my brain vessels were about to explode
With helplessness, despair and tension,
An old guy convicted for dangerous driving
Sat down beside me. He gave me
A cigarette and friendly hugged me.
I looked at him with gratitude, wondering
What could be happening to the world
If for some reason God decided
To ban hugs.