airemaye

Your name means beautiful A golden ocean Of grass Swaying in the wind As far as the eye can see Until it meets The sky The beautiful Endless Azure Sky Slowly fading to sapphire Rainbow clouds As the sun sets To the West Turning the land as Black as the soil in the ground Twinkling stars shine Across the heavens Millions of points of light Ad Astra per Aspera, Your name means beautiful But that was long ago And beauty fades with age Now you are Rows of identical houses As far as the eye can see Dusty parking lots Shopping malls Infinite rows of streets Filled with ghosts of the past Discarded newspapers blow

One step at a time One At A Time Once upon a time we were only kids Meeting for the very first time Pulling hair Calling names Taunting, teasing Trying to outdo each other In constant rivalry Too alike to be friends Yet too different to resist No matter How many Times you say You don't like me I know the truth. One step at a time One At A Time Once upon a time we grew up a little Meeting again under the gymnasium lights With sweet music playing And couples swaying Desire pulling me You calling for me Blushing, dancing Looking into my eyes And seeing the fire in my soul Too alike to be just friends So tell m

Part One: 1934 I was born on June 3rd, 1930, in Cristuru-Sexuiesc, a small town in Romania. I had a very loving, very religious, Jewish family. We lived in a decently sized house, but it always seemed crowded because there were so many of us. There was my mother, Liesel, a seamstress and housewife, my father, Isaac, a doctor, my brothers Elijah and Joel, and my sisters, Esther and Raisa. Joel and I were closest in age, and we got into a lot of mischief together during our childhood years, making our mother scream by running through the house with muddy shoes and playing hide-and-seek in her herb garden. One day, when I was nearly four, Joel

Part Two: 1944 When I was nearly fourteen, I knew what it felt like to be hunted, persecuted, and hated for being who I was. I was Jewish, and the Nazis wanted to kill me. It had been ten years, but I still hadn’t forgotten what Evanna had said to me. When they came and took my family and I, I had only one plea. “Please, can I take my violin with me?” I had asked the SS officer who had arrested us, while we were standing in a line of other Jews in the middle of the ghetto which had long since become our home. “Where we’re going, you won’t be needing it.” A man beside me said mournfully. “Y’know