We met my father crippled,
his back was the bone of the country,
and my mother would pray as if her nation was a prodigal son,
believing he would one day return home.

It is true that the first time my mother told me a story,
I had imagined she fed on poison after tasting the bitterness on her tongue,
and a score year later, the manuscript still has the same authors.

My father’s land has men and women seeking heaven in ballot papers,
in lines leading to fate,
they speak to themselves in tongues of faith:
“we will plant labor into the earth
and hope the brooms don’t sweep it away and call it democracy”

E go better was my grandfather’s mantra after reciting the national anthem,
but at broken roads,
some of us realized that hope is a murderer that kills you for believing.
There are many of us who died in expedition,
painting pictures of mirrors with no cracks in it,
we travel to places where songs weep and dances hunger.
And we return with a heart that has lost its beat.

Even my mouth has grown weary from wishing flowers grew on its face,
one that can define the beauty of my national heritage
and cause youths to believe that they are leaders of tomorrow
without having to be memories of coffins.

My eyes are closed, so my dreams are asleep.
Absent from this nightmare,
I search for tomorrow among the days it has been folded into,
and I discover a shadow cast over it.

To walk in faith will be to walk in the dark.
but my government is no tunnel from which I will discover light at the end of.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Sergey Vinogradov on Unsplash