They killed me in me

This home is not mine

This porch is not mine

this land is not mine

and these steps are not mine.

Steps I followed not knowing me

because alone and not mine I had to be

I do not know of me anymore,

they killed me in me.

Horizons are not mine.

the sights in front are not mine.

The unknown paths, the unknown screams

from an unknown soul

And yet mine.

Not a single face I recognise

Of those that create a life for me, and scores of others,

in the darkness of interminable nights.

I still have all

and yet none.

They hide in the shadow

While I prepare to go

Back to My Own.

Do you still wait for me, my destroyed home?

Weeded land,

I once called my own,

Do you still wait for me with your warm womb?

Forever full, and now cold

Stamped treaded by boots

Harsh and cruel

Foreign, dark, bitter people

Do you still long for our plough

To bow over you

with its gentle song?

Don’t let, like I had,

Be turned against yourself.

I return to you

Every day

Though only in thoughts, though the wound still hurts,

Both mine and yours

And it shall hurt on

Until the day breaks

When you will again be

Not theirs, but your own.

When the foreign will be in a hand another

Then shine and happiness come together

And a shadow of mine

Comes into its own

And loudly say to all:

This is mine!

Nothing beats one’s own!