Frank Mugisha, Rwanda
In 2024 the world’s complexities made me wish for a time other than now
Made me think of my old self
My old prayers old hopes and old wishes
Made me think of my childish joy
Before I’d grown up to realize times have repeated themselves
Violence has multiplied since the times of Napoleon and now we live side by side
In flesh in Gaza
And on our smartphones in our hands
Looking on helplessly
As I try to sleep, I’m awakened by the sound repeatedly getting louder in my neighborhood in Congo
We had recently turned Sudan on mute because in Ethiopia it was devastating
Reminded me of 30 years ago in Rwanda
Human life equated to zero
Delete Repeat Delete Repeat
Politics of hollow hearts
Decisions of bloodthirsty tongues
Pleasing the trigger finger for profit
Dollar drenched in pool of blood of the innocent
Territory secured at all costs, let alone the human cost
Respect for breath lost
Each second each secret revealed
Love shown to the sacred machine gun
The disregarded treaties
The knee on the throat
When my children ask me how we got here
In my recitation I will say
In my time climate change was no longer avoidable
The stark evidence no longer escapable
Wild fires ravaged California, Angola, Congo, to name but a few
Hurricane Beryl, Debby, Ernesto, Francine, Helene, always wondered what the name of the next one would be
Our news channels delivered the calamities round the clock
But unreal entities stalled real change like a battery-less clock
Corporate interests valuing more than the forests, the lakes and the seas
Politicians playing all tricks to hinder any meaningful progress
Choosing greed over their constituents’ needs
Accountability for their crimes, there was no need
And as you can imagine when elections happened there was nothing like a new breed
In power, only those with guns and money and the will to pull the trigger
At times the kind were shackled and taken as political prisoners
Motherless babies roamed refugee camps from Gaza to Libya
I know sometimes words will fail me
Because how do I recite with accuracy the amount of tears I shed when I had a moment of an ancestral memory
Running like a headless hen trying to hide from the machete men
How do we reflect on all the harm we’ve inflicted on each other?
How do we remember the forgotten parts of ourselves?
How do we recover the lost time?
How do we reverse a burning forest?
How do we put out the fires in our souls?
How do we keep the smile bright as we bleed?
How do we mute the rambling sounds of an empty stomach?
How do we keep going even when there’s nothing to look forward to?
How do we keep being strong when our bodies lack the nutrients?
How do we deal with the love-less and the ones loved less?
How do we rewire our brains to believe in love again?
What do we tell our betrayed hearts?
How do we feed the hungry and respect the ones with less?
How does the poor man restore his dignity?
At what point do we become at peace with ourselves?
Will that peace bring paralysis to the gunman’s trigger finger?
Will that peace perhaps redistribute resources a little more equitably?
Will that peace change the mind of the leader planning to mislead?
Will it bring the realization that we can be different and still live with our differences?
In political preference, skin tone and place of worship?
In 2024, I wish we had our priorities re-examined
Our bodies and minds tended to
I wish the air wasn’t so thick with pervasive anxiety
I wish the social unrest all around me would come to a rest
I wish our prediction of the future didn’t include mass funeral plans
And I wish bills to those injured by stray bullets weren’t piling up
I wish our politicians would remember their original role which is to serve
I wish the ammunition could cease to exist
If only black and brown bodies evolved into bullet proof skins
In 2024 I wish we valued human life.
