Juan Francisco Sicilia Ortega, a 24-year-old student when he was murdered in 2011, counts as just one of the many innocent victims of the War on Drugs. His father Javier Sicilia, one of México’s most famous poets, became a highly visible activist after his son’s death. He demanded that the government end its militaristic approach to the drug problem and instead start fighting corruption and the impunity from prosecution that those profiting from the drug trade continue to enjoy. Sicilia has now stopped writing poetry. Silence, he contends, can sometimes prove stronger than mere words. Below, his final poem.

Photo: El Pais

El mundo ya no es mundo de la palabra

Nos la ahogaron adentro

Como te asfixiaron, como te desgarraron a ti los pulmones

Y el dolor no se me aparta, sólo tengo al mundo

Por el silencio de los justos

Sólo por tu silencio y por silencio, Juanelo.

The world is no longer the world of words

they drowned us inside

How they suffocated you, how they tore out your lungs

And the pain does not leave me, I only have the world

For the silence of the just

Only for your silence and for silence, Juanelo.