Still Hundreds of Unheard Stories to Share

Where words fail

Truth hits hardest

What has been done we would rather forget

But not the lessons it brought

As where one doesn’t know

The other can complement

What we have never known

Is the most harmful sometimes

Sometimes we just want to let go

But when we unfold our hands

We don’t see the burden we carry

Mourning gone invisible even for ourselves

The wounds unhealable

For how to soothe old pain with new words?

Is it ‘suffered from’ or ‘fought for’

When two story lines run through my veins

Where Indo and Dutchman unite in one body

Who then is the strongest fighter in the cage?

I was taught half and half make a beautiful whole

There has been fought and fallen for where I stand now

Eyes still moist in grateful existence

Conscious of past

Wiser in present

The pain still not completely gone tomorrow

There are wounds under the skin that won’t heal

Still hundreds of unheard stories to share

You hear the echo in the silence

Not who shouts louder

But thinks quieter

Not who shouts louder

But commemorates in silence

Amara van der Elst, 2021