Waves

The moment you meet the man
who promised you of a better life
will be a little bit cold. The moment you give
him the 200$, the only thing left in
your pocket, is much colder.

The moment you get on the boat,
you'll start praying, you'll
start remembering everyone you know,
every place you've been to,
every kiss she gave you.
The moment the journey begins
will make your heart throb fast,
the numbness will crawl everywhere
in your body, and your thoughts
will be a mess.

Someone will kick you for
taking more place than you've
been given, and you'll try hard to fit yourself
into that one square meter.

Once you're faraway from the shore,
surrounded by blue,
in the middle of nowhere,
the sea around you,
the sky above you, and the wind
is threatening your lungs,
you'll wish you thought about all of this
twice, before you'd made this
stupid decision.

Then the waves will sound like
they're blaming you that you haven't
bled yet, that you're running
away, and
you'll choke with guilt.

But you won't really regret it,
you won't regret it
until you hear the first child cry, and

you're suddenly in the water,
the foreign water that seems ready
to embrace your body
tighter than your homeland did.
You're looking around,
and you're wondering who to save.

You won't remember when
you first started drowning, but you'll
remember very well the face
of the mother who lost three of her kids
somewhere in the sea.

The screaming will make you deaf,
the floating dead bodies
will multiply fast within a few hours,
and you're as hopeless as them,
you're hungry and tired,
you're afraid,
but you'll swim and fight until
you're ashore and

when you're ashore,
someone'll come to you:
"How many were you on the boat?", he asks.
"500", you answer.
He starts tearing up and you don't know
why until he tells you
"you're one of the lucky 20
who survived."