Milica Denković Portfolio
FROM IDEA TO MEDIA
Refugees
Refugees
One train
One mistake
Army barracks
One big room
full of beds
without privacy
My grandma, my mother
my sisters, my brother
and the canary in the cage
There are also
women and children
Big shared bathroom
with a lot of showers
Remembering the
shampoo against lice
that our mother
treat us with
both four of us
One library
in which
my grandma took me
to borrow some books
because I loved to read
and one Una
I remember only her name
and nothing more
After
I asked my mother
about it
She said that she was aware
how privileged we were
We had home to come back to
We were there by mistake
They weren‘t. They escaped
just before paramilitary
troops enter their village
they were the last
They don‘t know what
happened to the others
who stayed
There is no hope
for them
They whisper
In the barrack
there were women
which husbands
and sons were
killed before
their eyes
All that they have
is this big room
without privacy
These metal army beds
and things they
could carry in some sack
sorrow, pain and
nightmares.
We weren‘t refugees
we were mistake
but we got
in the closest touch
with people who
go through the worst
After I became
antiwar activist
and antimilitarist
Long after that
I discovered
that I can use
poetry to deliver
those messages
I never saw Una
in my life again
I hope she is ok
When I think
of nowadays
refugees
It all is coming
back to me
That silhouette
of army barracks
and shapes of
metal army beds
we weren‘t refugees
but we lived with them
and with their pain
for a while
It more than enough
to open up to those
people who had to
packed their life
so they can carry it
and didn‘t have time to
think what it would
exactly be
but they also
had to carry
a burden for life
Unwanted and too heavy
One of my refugee friend
told me that she is
sorry she couldn’t
bring photographs
She has only one
from childhood
in her album are
some other photographs
The ones that
can not be described
To me, life gave
these photographs
and the lesson
from empathy
which I would
never forget
that‘s why I will
always lend a hand
where other people
point the finger at.