Cambodian ghosts.

Black. Everywhere we look people are covered in black.
The colour that stole our freedom.
We can’t even take a walk now without worrying
We might come back without a leg or an arm, at all.
They educate our kids in the art of hate.
They fight now and betray their friends.
Betrayal buys an extra bowl of rice.
Kids are chanting the name of a man
A man they’ve never seen.
A man who caused the death of their very own families.
Chanting the name of a killer.
Chanting the name of the faceless.
Chanting the name behind starvation.
Chanting the name of death itself.
“Polpot will make us strong!
Whose taking away all our food?
Polpot is our leader, our saviour!
Whose introducing these new soldiers?
Polpot will clean up our country!
Why are there dead bodies everywhere?”
Malnutrition. Labouring with disease and infection.
Our skin is hanging off our bones.
Our eyes are hardly staying in their sockets.
Not that we’d mind not seeing our once loved country
Turning into a dystopia before our very eyes.
We go to sleep to the sound of screaming.
The family next door just got their father taken away.
We go to sleep to the sound of sobbing.
The wife doesn’t know how she’ll look after her children.
We go to sleep with the stench of death up our noses.
We work in fields and spy on our neighbours.
We steal and kill for a meal to live one more day.
All for a man who will kill our families.
We wake up screaming to an explosion.
More screams and cries fill the air.
The smell of blood is overwhelming.
A young boy bleeding from what’s left of his leg.
For decades, this suffering goes on and on.
Polpot is dead but his disaster lives on.