The stories that you don’t like are the
ones always wanting to become a poem
I didn’t choose the lines, I don’t mean to say
Mum could no longer go to Waterside Market
to sell her bitter ball and pepper.
But it’s fine to say the truth, to say the mud
stuck between our legs contaminated our creeks.
to say the birds didn’t just fly
because they saw us running
homelessness was not only losing our shelter,
we lost the land like the birds that
lost the trees that house their nests.
But leaving home was a fact that death
is not good for our liking.
I do not wish to speak of how
we shattered our home while leaving
so the rebels could think it was already looted
how we saw a nursing child making elegy
where no Samaritan is good.
What is a country where our bodies are taken as bread?
we gave up on our smiles, on the clothes bought for
Christmas and New Year celebrations,
on praying together inside a quiet home,
on spending the nights on warm beds.
When staying in this country becomes a sin
the moment you touch the border, leaving no trace behind,
you know God has forgiven you to go and sin no more.
Even if it’s a story we don’t like, since we couldn’t escape experiencing it, it has to be heard… somehow. You did great, poet.