What Were You Once? Poem by RIC BASTASA

have you forgotten how it feels to have nothing?
when we were nothing at all
when you beg that someone listens to your grief
because you are about to become another cracking glass?

let me remind you about the past
this is the mirror: you go from house to house looking for breakfast
a bread will do, coffee is a bonus.
you were so thin, the wind pities you because it can blow you away.
you had dark, sunken eyes, your hunger and thirst cannot make you sleep.
you have the ambiance of a cemetery
the smell of a corpse
the creaking bones of the abandoned
body rotting in a nameless
place.

you were a leech, a numb parasite,
you have mastered shame.

now you are on top of the situation
like a fly on a buffalo's back
you have no time to listen to other people's lament
you think of them as pests
you have no bread to spare for the hungry
you think it is their fault
you have forgotten about the cracking glass
and you have a stone and you break it
you love the sound
because you have forgotten.

May God remember you once again
May He forgive you. May He love you in your worst form
as He had loved you
once formless in the cruel space
where once the sun exploded
and the earth crashed
like the ball of your imagination
in those
wars within you.