Are We Dead Yet?

The puss oozes from many places in a body ravaged by a cancer inherited down generation after generation. The smell lingers in the air of rotten tomatoes, half emptied bottles of shampoo, a leftover kebbe. The flies feast on gangrene, it celebrates with a nightmarish buzzing the filth that covers a society deadened to its own illness. The rats eat away with no restraint, the lost beauty of a ripped signé shirt or the exquisite taste of a white wedding cake. Rats populating corners and alleys occupied by ghosts, unaware of their doomed existence. Minarets and bells call to awaken, knock on the door of consciences tucked away neatly in closets of righteousness. A gong sound, emptied of its many vibrations, barely moving the muck so thickly resting on the waters of rivers and sea.

Shouts of youth walk out in the streets like mirages of laughable acts. Hope is squashed as soon as it peaks its head from under the thorns. Flowers are trashed as soon as their fragrance invites to be alive. Fingers are broken as soon as they learn the ecstasy of molding a new future.

But I have seen trees sprout when all the fields have been cut low, moss and grass pop out of stones, butterflies roam desolate lands and one crow croaking laughingly at all the emptiness of a valley of death.

From the ashes of desolation, we emerge to heed the call of our lost ravaged body. We refuse the bandages of empty promises, pouring our compassionate hearts into every wound. Against the tip of knives that has disfigured our souls and dismembered our thoughts, we flow like an unstoppable river of love that heals us and them. We dance, we sing, we write poetry on top of houses and in the darkest recluses of brothels, until light shines again from our pure hearts, our searing tears, our unwavering will to exist and be.

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