(Models found at The Aquino Center Museum' of the cell used to imprison Benigno Aquino at Fort Bonifacio; Here, he wrote this poem 'Solitary Confinement')
I eat alone what food I’m thrown in unclean plates licked by dogs I pray I jog I tire myself , I sleep desperately hoping to dream joys I once knew”
There is no one to keep me company in this lonely cell, in this compound where simple, honest men turn to beast unmoved by pity, untouched by conscience.”
Imprisoned in a sweat box with knobless doors, windows barred walls painted in monotonously drab. Sleeping on concrete bed feasted on by every hungry insects. Deafened by the silence taking of each second in this man made womb. This my living tomb.
I barely see the sun feel its soothing rays. I have not seen a single star for many many months. I have forgotten the image of a laughing child, a smile. I miss the laughter and songs of my daughters; greeting of a friend.
I have been exiled to a land where times has been suspended and men’s heartless coldness burns and death the only sure relief. Where even saints are force to cry because the angels grow horns, swallowing in sin. Having traded their wings for tails. Their harps and lyres for pitchforks.
In the eerie silence of my tomb a little mouse appears, nervous, afraid, retreats to a corner, watch me weep and pray returning every night to keep me company. Later, he shares my meager food, plays to amuse me. Helping me waste the precious, priceless hours. How strange: I have found a friendship with a rodent. I could not found among my captors, my country man.
I scratch the walls to mark the passage of each day, a day lost forever never to return- wasted, gone!
I watch the marching lengthening columns of my days passing me by mournful cadence to their death like dripping drops of water from life’s vessel drip, drip, drip. The leather jug will soon be dry empty like a body with no more blood and tears to shed and then: goodbye!”
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