These Dark Skies: Seeking Refuge on Europe’s Shores
This situation can be changed, but only if our compassion is stronger than our fear.
This essay originally appeared in print in the Winter 2017 issue of The Southern Review.
Guardian
normalnormal
On Being
something
something
matter
Eh, what could you do?
I am not responsible, though I benefit from those factors just as surely as you are pinned beneath them. And I’m not sure who is responsible. I don’t really believe it’s you, for you did the only logical thing possible, given your circumstances, given the weft of the world you were facing, the violence, the privation. But I don’t know how to make this situation better.
Arianne Zwartjes is a poet and essayist recently relocated from the Netherlands to the mountains of Colorado. She is the author of the lyric nonfiction project Detailing Trauma: A Poetic Anatomy (University of Iowa Press); a selection from Detailing Trauma won the 2011 Gulf Coast Prize for Nonfiction and was named a Best American Essays Notable Essay in 2013. Her writing can be found in Tarpaulin Sky, Kenyon Review, Ninth Letter, Fourth Genre, Essay Daily, and elsewhere. Visit her and more of her writing at ariannezwartjes.com or on Medium @ariannezwartjes.
Enter your email address to receive notifications for author Arianne Zwartjes
Success!
Confirmation link sent to your email to add you to notification list for author Arianne Zwartjes
More in this series
Manhattan’s Vanished Little Syria, and the Work of Preserving My Family’s History
Raji Lian, my great-grandfather, came over from Syria in 1899.
Why We Cross the Border in El Paso
I felt my mom’s grip tighten around my hand as dozens surged across the Rio Grande, the water waist-high. Adults held children in their arms or carried them in rebozos across their backs.
How to Stop Saying Sorry When Things Aren’t Your Fault
In Hindi, you don’t say ‘sorry;’ you ask for forgiveness. So, growing up, I made the mistake of apologizing for who I am.