“I can’t breathe!”, I screamed. “I can’t hear!”, was the echo.

Think about it,
It’s thirty years the first promise was crafted
Yet, nothing positive has been thought or drafted.
The promises turned back on the journey to greatness,
And pain ossified them on the spot into vain… but wait, let’s
Go in deeper.

Roads, buildings, hope, dreaming, ‘dults, children, pots, three meals,
School, jobs, lost meaning when you lost will and, I guess, hearing.

It’s thirty years the first promise was crafted,
Or more, I can’t see what weird appendage has been grafted
To the future of whole generations aspiring
To be something, but vainly perspiring
And this instant

Promises pile, plausibly nigh, but possibly high, impossibly Pi
That nothing’s decided, nothing resides in the blank page on this side

It’s thirty years the first promise was…well more,
And each one feels like a Cinderella-before-fame chore
While the voices rise from the depth of democratic thorns
And die unheard, buried in the land of miles of dictatorial scorn.

And nobody hears the screams:
Hearing-aids titter on the side of the screen.
(c) nyonglema