A refugee camp

By: Hayet Ben Bada

If I could write down those memories

If I could paint your sorrow in diaries

Words would never mind

Colours would never mind

My ink also would never mind

But I couldn’t  find

That ink which could write down your story

Those images which could picture your worry

That colour of joy which could wipe your tears and  sighs

Because today, all the colours can effuse your eyes

I could never  find

Words that could describe a single tear

I am sorry,

It was more than what words could bear

If I was asked what I would be in that life,

A word ? a hero ? a state ? a knife ?

I would choose to be a camp

Only a camp can be  Superman today

Only a camp can be the united nations today

Only a camp can be the international community today

Only a camp can be the globe, the world’s  charity organizations,

The human heart, the human hug, and the human tender,

That can never belong to any human but humanity

The lost dream of today

Only a camp can be a hero today

Only a camp can dry tears and wipe a sigh

Only a camp can hold a refugee

Just like a country, just like a mother, just like a lover

 And only the whole world can kill a refugee

With his eyes and prayers and crocodile tears

With his catchwords, songs, denounces, lies and fears

Yeah, only camps can guarantee Heaven in wartime

Only camps can gift the refugee some love and some home

Only camps can be torn with the refugee’s body  by a bomb,

By a militia, by a missile, by the  wind

Only camps care, only camps mind

Only camps can stay untill the last moment with a refugee under the sun

Only a camp can be a man