I WAS TOLD TO REMEMBER_POEM

I was born Rwandan.

It’s all I have ever known; it wasn’t just that I knew

I had always been told. My mother told me stories

In hushed voices I was brought to the knowledge that I had lost something

People, we shared blood and yet they will never know my name.

But I had to know theirs.

I was born 4 years after those one hundred days that claimed the simple joy of just being neighbors.

I had to know how ignorance told us we were different and our eyes chose to see a different face.

I was little and yet I knew I walked on a land that saw blood.

It became a recital, Ndi Umunyarwanda

To engrave in our minds that we raised weapons against each other.

That Laughter of old should have been enough,

And yet that rotten seed seemed to intertwine our hearts in a weave of hate.

I saw sadness in My Mothers’ eyes,

To lose a father she had never had the chance to know,

To a war that claimed to survive was to slay a friend.

Every year the elders remember, and young ones are told,

How one night, many woke up to be called names.

To classify us like animals ready for slaughter.

I sound raw but those nights and days were those our history came down to,

Forget that we were a flourishing kingdom.

Men on horses came and we forgot we had legs that once ran to the greatest battles.

Liberation came from men who knew how home could turn into a myth.

The handshake of forgiveness was extended,

So, we could never turn into what we once ran away from.

For our vision to be that we shall rebuild,

That we never saw an end.

Our voices were never muffled, we just never knew high our pitch could go.

Decades have long passed, as a history that I never got to see unfolds.

My heart wrenches from that unforgettable journey my mother undertook to save herself and her own.

That tale that sounds absolute. How human we are, and how to take and to give can be blurry.

For we are each other’s’ mirror, for from the eyes of your companion you will know,

Will I be lifted if I fall?

 By UBB

(I have no rights on this picture as most pictures posted on this blog; only the poems. just download them on Pinterest)

30 YEARS_POEM

Such a long time ago and yet to memory it feels like yesterday

With extreme efforts bodies were concealed, for their stories to never be told

And yet it seems we can’t help but dig in the present

Our united front sings that there is still more to find

To each other, we whisper of those faces that left us too soon

For in a hundred days each household lost a next of kin

As young ones we wonder why our elders sweat to fight a war that ended

For our eyes never saw the bloodshed

For a handshake is just cordial

And yet in our folktales we are told that the mind can never be won over

That our battle is to change the narrative

To be brutal in stamping the truth

For our fathers saw

And spent a lifetime telling

We got told that our differences should pit us against each other

And we forgot our genesis that told of a great Rwanda

Such a price to pay even to those born after

As the journey unfolds, we witness the mend

Of the forgiveness we extended

And heroism of those that can hit back and still choose to pat a shoulder

To look at each other like old friends, for we could never win as foes

To this day we are still unearthing graves that could never be marked

And with final peace we give them, there comes a certainty that we triumphed

Our history was tainted, and yet we became painters of a vision of joy

There is still hurt of what could have been, and wounds of what could never be reversed

But we thrive to let go of a past that should never repeated

To fight for a future that will echo

BY UBB

LIFE (Better's POV), A Poem

What do I want to be?

What should I be?

The race of life suffocates me,

Telling me that I’m wearing mismatched shoes.

And yet, as I walk down the lane of my choice,

I wonder, did I choose right?

Is what I want what I need?

I call in the dark for some shade of light,

To that ancient potter; if I’m shaped right?

Is questioning myself meaning that I was wrong?

Or that being right means to hit some curb?

My breath of everyday has become a conflict of interest

What should I do with this thing called life?

Driving through to only see those red lights.

Is there a right way to live?

Is it to be rich, poor or just dead?

Is there truly wisdom for that mystery?

Throughout history we walk to fit in somebody else’s shoes

To walk down the aisle of one who lived before you;

To just marry their vision and become one with their regret!

Is that the whole sum of who we are?  

 _UBB_