Devourers of life

A poem to my father who was tortured and disappeared by the "Commando Conjunto" in CHILE 1974

Painful nights of pounding heart,
breaking sorrow, tearing me apart.
Always, forever, I wonder —
will you ever come back
to hold me in your arms?

I know you tried to survive,
to crawl out alive
from the hell that swallowed you whole.
So much pain.
Unspeakable torment.
Devourers of life —
providers of the blackest intent,
hell-bent on cruelty.

Six months
to extract your dignity
through horror no mouth dares speak.

They cursed you
in the pit of despair
for what they saw as weakness —
your bleeding flesh gave up
their names, their safety,
burned into your screaming conscience,
though it was never truly you.

My bones have carried
four decades
since yours were broken,
since you were pounded into dust,
hung like Saint Peter —
the sacrifice
on the altar of our family tree.

Beaten.
Subjugated.
Liquidated.
Dropped from the cliffside
of injustice —
false accusation,
true annihilation.