My village, AFRICA.

With each heart beat

 I see visions…

Faces…

Of kinsmen from next door

Burning in domestic flames

Screaming out in mortal pain!

With each drum beat

I see…

The Bloodshot eyes of young people like me

Balancing guns

In their premature hands

I watch in horror

As they spray bullets into the thoraxes of others

Familiar tunes play in my head

Of songs continually sang

By my mothers…

I hear them whisper to themselves;

“Was it better for our babies to be born alive?

…Or…”

I hear too, the soul of the stillborn child rejoicing…

“Freedom!” he cries!

I know how that unblemished soul…

Feels…

No need…

To grow up and fight brothers

No need…

To end up with nothing

Struggling to live…

No need…

To die with arms stretched out…

Mere inches away…

From freedom!

And in the afterlife only say;

“I was almost there”

That is not good enough for me!!!

If I could change hearts

I would touch the icy replicas

Of those

Ones who set fire to my neighbors’ roofs

And look away!

Those vipers who hang up lies

Defiling the skies

Who present poison in tinted vials

As doses of truths

We are forced to take after each meal

We are one community

One nation

With one history

 Why these differences then?

I look into the compound of another

And what do I see?

What do I hear?

What do I smell?

…

 I see Bloodshed

I hear Curses from sons’ mouths to fathers’ ears!

I smell decaying flesh partly ravaged by;

Vultures…

Dogs…

Those that once roamed our village

As harmless birds

As pets even!

They stood watching…waiting

For the people to slaughter each other

And afterwards...fight over lifeless flesh

The cowards they are!!!

I will not console myself with lies

That…

“Things are getting better”

NO!

At the hands of our own,

My neighbors still suffer!!