She wrote their names
where the wall could hold them.

Not because the wall was strong—
but because it had not learned
to refuse.

Daniela. Ricardo. Tomás.

Each name
pressed into charcoal
as if the hand
could make it stay.

No one told her.
No one said
this is how memory works.

But she understood
what happens
when names
are not placed somewhere.

They leave—
first from the mouth,
then from the room,
then from the world.

The others
did not look at the wall.

They passed
as if nothing had been written,
as if reading would ask them
to remember—
and remembering
was already too close to loss.

Later,
the wall would fade.
The charcoal would break into dust.

Rain would come; hands would pass.
Time would do what time does.

But not before
the names moved—
from surface
to somewhere that could not be erased.

Years later,
someone would find the place:
a tree,
a trunk marked with words
that did not belong to one hand.

Among them, barely visible:

Do not forget us.

Not a prayer. Not a request.
A command
spoken once
and left to continue.

 

W. E. Ticas is a Salvadoran-American writer and poet based in New York. His work explores memory, war, displacement, faith, and survival through poetry and literary nonfiction. His writing has appeared in The Times of Israel Blogs and other literary venues.