Whispers in a Jar.

Hard, dry, crumbling ground,

quietly cracking from the explosives

hidden, breathless beneath.

Sixty years before

small, grimy, gentle little hands

in the darkness before dawn

had dug deep, with determination

to hide something within them.

It was a secret that

wouldn’t be known for six long decades.

Those children grew

into stunted, tortured, twisted bodies

that could not escape

those harsh, tense touches in the night.

Lying in bed,

they wait for the creaking crack

in the door to grow in size

and for the shadow to flirt with the ground

and the decision of whether or not

to rape a child.

Eyes surrounded by puffy wrinkles

still wait, with the covers

pulled up tight to their chins.

The home for children

was meant to be a haven

of safety and security;

but instead of colourful crayon

drawings placed proudly on the walls

there were whispered words

written in light, shaky hands.

Light enough to be almost invisible,

these children were hidden from a world

not yet ready to understand.

In that day and age such things

did not exist

and were easily missed by blind eyes,

milky with the dew of patriotism and ignorance.

Sixty years on and those brittle,

broken words are finally heard.

They escape from the cracked jars

they had been banging on,

burdened and buried under the crumbling ground.

Like a phoenix they rise

free from those lies and the perversion

of people who were meant to care.