The roads are wider now, but the streets are empty.
The shelves in Nakumatt are empty.
The bodaboda guy sits in waiting, more willing to bargain his price, “madam, nipe yenye uko nayo.”

My breath is uneasy.
Every other exhale is a sigh.
I am uncertain of everything.
People are talking politics, warily.
I do not know what any of this means. All I know is that everything is suspicious; there is blood outside the body,
there is a woman crying from her gut, her throat, all her insides,
mourning how fleeting life is,
her child lifeless.

There is death here.
and I fear that we will turn our backs on the reason our children are dying.
That the memories we collectively chose erase what is essential, what needs to be remembered.

Will there be a gravestone?
A plaque to mark the earth?
By God, let us not remember lives simply as numbers.
Instead, soft, living, breathing things:
A life.

I fear we are constructing unreal realities
That when you tell yourself a story enough times, it becomes your truth, even when it’s untrue. misremembered histories. 1969, 1982, 1992, 2007.

I lost my step somewhere between media blackouts and overheated timelines. Everything is suspicious.

Now I sit with this, my history teacher in high school said “Question everything.”

About:

Rosie Olang’ is a member of Enkare Review.

 

The Second Issue of Enkare Review will be released on 11/02/2018