Quagmire

• Maryam Hosain, Grade 10
• Poetry
• 2015

Standing at the entrance, foreign and strange,
Like the shadow, black hand of coward society,
Survival hidden in a cruel unknown world,
Crossed borders, an alien language…

These eyes tell silent stories.
Stories that would shock even the darkest of hearts.
They’ve seen killing and death, and pain and suffering
to extents that can be hard to imagine.

A slave of exploitation,
Taking advantage of the sad situation,
A clandestine in an intimate exile,
Torn apart between old and new,
Hoping one day to live in freedom.

A twisted, weighted, rigged game,
A rutted one-way dead-end lane,
A fogged, dirty, opaque pane –
Which is the world?