Until You Broke Me

“The people who are the most oppressed are the ones who are silenced, not heard, and denied their basic rights.” (Aung San Suu Kyi)

Strength, loyalty and patriotism all used to ring true to me.
I used to love and pray for this place
with all the strength and hope in me.
In my infancy, I used to fasten little green-and-white flags
on furniture and watch them quake like the twigs of a giant tree
on a solemn harmattan day–strong and sure
of surviving all stormy weather.

Until you broke me.
Until I left my father’s house to serve my fatherland.
Until my service allowance could only sustain a meagre part of my needs.
Until I cried out in despair and you clamped my call for help down
with dark voices of threats and menace.
Until you made me feel unsafe in my fatherland.

This is how you break a people–ring them up with threats,
Shake them up till their voices are strung tight in their throats,
unable to make sounds or form words.
Make them dance to the rhythm of your bland drums and forsake their dreams,
bring them to trade their freedoms for their last supper.
Till brothers become strangers and betrayers.

And, though hope seems bleak, maybe, tomorrow you would un-break me
so I can find the strength to pick those old tired flags and fly them high in the sky.
Maybe tomorrow, we can rewrite history.

Olachi Angel Iwehee