My words are soaked in blood.
The blood of victims I wept beside,
Blood of war I have witnessed as a doctor and as a writer,
Blood of hospitals I have worked in,
And the blood of monsters I fought.
They are born in the stagnant chambers of my heart,
Where the pulse records agony just to squeeze it out into ink.
My words move through my veins,
From the heart to the mind that commands the pen.
This pen is an open blade that cuts both ways;
I write with my right hand until it bleeds,
Then switch to my left to give the right time to recover.
I must release these ghosts, even if they bleed me dry.
The ink blends with the red on the white paper.
My words are soaked in the blood of my sister on the street,
The blood of my friends on the floor,
The blood of strangers in the hospital trauma rooms.
Blood of murder, blood of death,
Blood of torture, and blood of war,
A war I fought to lose before I ever won.
With every drop, the page remembers.
With every word, I recall:
The screams, the cries, and the desperate prayers to God.
My tiny heart keeps a memory of all,
Carried in my blood.
My words are soaked in blood:
The blood of my heart and the blood of others.
Coagulated on the street ground,
On the floor of the hospital ward,
On the cold slab of the prison cell,
And on the walls of my mind.
My soul is dyed in blood; and so are my words.
I apologize on behalf of my bloody words.
Get another writer to clean the floor.
My words are a crime scene.
They record the history of others’ blood, and mine.