steam rises from frostbitten skin,
they said it was for science,
for progress
numbers on clipboards,
organs cataloged in silence.
no names, just codes,
just subjects,
just logs.
the scalpel doesn’t ask why,
it only slices.
truth drowned in the cold basin,
the body still twitches,
or maybe that’s memory
not theirs, mine.
no screams in the snow anymore,
just echoing metal doors and
footsteps that never question.
I remember a woman
pregnant, or maybe not,
they injected something,
watched her belly rise like dough
rotting from within.
flesh cracks like ice,
and the children,
they thought it was school.
what lesson is this?
how blood behaves in freezing air?
rats chew through infection,
glass vials hum with secrets
no one was meant to know,
and still
they documented everything
with careful hands.
no ghosts here,
only data.
only results.
only how long it takes
for a man to stop blinking
when you cut off
his eyelids.
I see white coats,
but not doctors.
I see purpose,
but not mercy.
Manchuria swallowed the truth,
but it leaks
through whispers,
through unmarked graves,
through the hollow bones of
those who never knew
why.
the snow keeps falling.
the past does not.