Survival is not a sigh of relief,
not an honor to be proud of.
Survival is the nonexistent death.
It is a lonely and guilty reality,
where the hand you were dealt
should be blessed,
but instead is actually dissatisfying.
It’s a middle place; a place
Between freedom and slavery
Between honesty and deceit
Between Auschwitz and “home”
Between delight and misery
Between starving and overfull
Between being human and just a number
But it does have an advantage
over death. I live to tell the truth,
to educate those who don’t believe.
I’m alive today, to be living proof
of the past
not only in its inhumanity and heartlessness
but also the enlightenment of history too.
So, even though unfair then and there
like the boy,
who Elijah resurrected,
a survivor from disease,
I return to tell this tale.