No … politeness, happiness, humanity
Have … pain, sorrow, suffering
Nobody is here, to love us
Nobody is here, to be honest
We are suffering without love
We are expecting politeness person
We are looking for humanity — but
we couldn’t see anywhere
We couldn’t see in the dream also
We are suffering difficulties for a
long time
We faced so many sorrows in our
country
Even we can’t tell anything that
our past life
We can’t explain in a word
We wanted to escape from our
country
We had seen Australia to save our
life
We were become as refugees and
orphans
How to explain, our difficulties.
We are thinking, our Tamil’s sorrow
will not finish
Like unceasing waves can never be
stable
Nobody understands about our situation
Nobody considers our sorrow
They ordered:
Don’t go out even to pray
the God
Don’t go to oval
Don’t explain your situation to
others
Don’t talk your sorrow
we consider anyone because
“you are refugees in Christmas Island”
[Kokulan is one of the Sri Lankan refugees facing court over the “riots” in the Christmas Island detention centre. He wrote this poem after spending 16 days in “red block” — an isolated maximum security block — and was moved to Phosphate Hill, a temporary detention centre on Christmas Island.]