Ashes
My past is a forgotten country, one littered with shards of happy
Memories that cut you like a knife when you think of them. We were happy once,
All smiles and family picnic. Our country was beautiful, in all its sunny glory and undying
Laughter. We were a big tourist attraction, but slowly we started to fall apart.
Brick by brick we came undone.
On the outside we were beyond beautiful, but inside the government was falling apart.
You were blaming her, she was blaming you and I was blaming myself for forgiving him.
Maybe if I had been harsher the monsoon of pain would have stopped, but I was a child.
A child in the word and not in nature. I mean what child had to see all that?
No child should have to feel the deaths of their soul before they even knew they had one.
The government began to turn on each other – civil war.
He used guns, she used words and I used prayer – but they never seemed to work.
Do they ever work? I wonder if God could hear my voice, maybe He just didn’t care.
I saw her pain, asked her to forgive him, she did. Time and time again she did.
I was so selfish, I could see she was dying but I asked her to stay.
He said he loved her, I had never seen such pain in love.
Does it all have guns and pain or was it just ours?
Today we sit her, touring other people’s countries, too scarred to rebuild ours from the ashes.
That’s what happens to ashes, right?
We forget them just like we’ve forgotten our country.
Omhle Duma
Grade 12ELG
