Across from the Killing Fields of Chung Ek, Cambodia
There is a woman singing. She sings through speakers that are perched on the back of a truck. She sings and her voice cracks and creaks and the air is peppered with grief and hope and I can't breathe through my nostrils because the dust is so thick and it's dust that covered mass graves covered bones covered teeth and it's dusk and the song has stirred up the ghosts. They are imploring my remembrance, they are stroking my hair and staring into my eyes and showing me that flesh is a mere boundary. A boundary carved out of obligation and action. DO BETTER, they say. DO MORE. BE MORE. LIVE your compulsion to keep moving, to see, to write, to help. And the woman sings her shaky song and the ghosts slide around me like ink like bubbles, looking for the sunset, looking for the voice, looking for their offerings.
Cambodia. I whisper the name to nobody. It is a secret and the air is burning. My lungs are dry and wooden. Kindling. Waiting.
Something is waking up inside of me.
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