Wanted: two shrinks

This is not my favorite subject.
But I see it as necessary because
the wound festered for too long,
and not many people even understood
how it affected our history & cultural
consciousness.  I might as well
get it out and so that we may
get it over with, in my lifetime,
for all future generations.

--------------------------
My people have a seeping,
festering wound in our core.
On the shrinks' couch,
we relieve our hearts of
our woe.

We were turned against each
other by our neighbor's
sly diplomacy.
We were swindled by our
neighbor's sweet talk of
a shared past and future.
20 millions of us were murdered
and raped by the same
courteous and sweet-talking
neighbor.

We were told:
it was all our own faults.
We were weak, we were
ignorant, we were not
worthy of justice, we
were not worthy of friendship,
we were not humanity.

The perpetrators lived on
 in pride and denial,
while we wallowed in
trauma, anger, survivor's
guilt.   We distrusted the
world, and we blamed ourselves,
and we turned against our true friends.
We feared the monstrous modernity
that brought us so much pain.
We withdrew into isolation and
stayed isolated for 30 years.

We turned to ideologies to
salve our wounded souls.
We made choices that defied reason
and led to more suffering.

Our neighbor and our foe,
she laughed at us:
look at the Chinese, the
village idiot of Asia!
She cuts herself, she eats scraps,
She respects no friends;
she is dirty, uncouth
and ungodly!
I pitied her and gave her a dollar,
yet she spit on my face
for some ancient wrong...
she threaten me all the time.
and she's getting stronger...
really she deserves whatever
she got... not that I did anything
wrong!


We look at her pretty Kimono,
but we are not deceived.
Her voice is steady, but
she is afraid.
We don't need international court
for this ancient wound, though
it's still raw and seeps.
and though our neighbor wants
 to pour more salt on it.

We need 2 shrinks, one for us,
 one for our neighbor.  A shrink for
the survivors' pain, the other for
the guilty's conscience.

Someday we'll be ready to move on:
ready to heal our wound,
ready to trust again,
ready to make friends,
ready to find closure,
ready to build peace,
ready to forgive,
ready to take responsibilities
 for the common future.

It's a small world, no way
to avoid our coy neighbor
, her schemes and subterfuges.
We school ourselves to truth
and reconciliation.   We stand
by each other and our true friends.