Letter From The Afterlife of a Terrorist

This seems to be a good moment to publish this poem.  I wrote it on Sept 12, 2001 and no one has read it until now.




Letter From The Afterlife Of A Terrorist

I thought I would be in Paradise

but I am in unspeakable hell.

The fire, the fire!

I thought it would only burn for a second,

but it keeps burning!

I thought I would lose consciousness

and wake up in heaven,

but now I am trapped forever

in agony!

The screams of the innocent dying

are like poisoned darts,

they lance the exposed nerves of my inmost soul.

The tears of the bereaved in their thousands

rain upon me like acid.

The worst hell of all is my regret,

my infinite regret,

that I was so stupid, so gullible, so callous,

so easily swayed by insipid argument,

so readily moved to escape my living awful depression

by casting it upon others.

The fire, the fire!  The jet fuel

sears me for ten thousand years!

The screams and the grief that blame me, rightly,

crush me under a million tons of leaden metal and concrete!

Allah, Allah, I was not merciful, I was not compassionate,

and now when I call to you I see the grit of your robe

as you turn away from me.

I thought I would awake in Paradise.

I have made a dreadful dreadful mistake!