Dear Mr President

Ngonidzashe Tinago

Dear Mr President

What does human blood mean to you?

That long speech for freedom day

Youth day?

Recalling history from the back of your hand

Ironic!

Let me take you to the streets of Soweto

Where human blood is still being shed

So that bread has taste when night falls

Inequality in and amongst youth by race

Was the fight for freedom to unite races or eradicate inequality?

Maybe both but only one has been partially achieved

We are this old but still taking baby steps

Umbuzo uthi sizofika na?

I'm a Zimbabwean by birth

Born from the land of inequality and forgotten justice

My forgotten senses can distinguish inequality from anything

Let me take you to the streets of Mdansane

Where I saw a shack next to a double story building

Someone's house undermining someone's home

Is this the freedom our the youth fought for?

Is this the equality they had in mind when they donated their blood to the earth?

Dear Mr President

I believe we can do better

June 16: Youth day

It's not just history but our chance to indulge in history in making

Freedom is futile when inequality is the only lion in the jungle

I have a dream

Where the marginalized are royalties

Where forgotten rights are justified

Where freedom means equality

But above all, love

Where bloodshed is a thing of the past

I have cried out to you far many times

Hoping we'd be on the same page

Took me so long to realize that:

We are on the same page but in different books

We'll never see eye to eye

But Mr president:

I believes in you!

I can't put my faith in politicians

But I believe in your vision

"Until all of us are free

None of us is free"

  • Author: Ngonidzashe Tinago (Pseudonym) (Offline Offline)
  • Published: June 16th, 2022 02:28
  • Comment from author about the poem: As South Africans celebrate Youth day, June 16, the uprising of the youth towards the Apartheid era and proved that the people can defeat the system, namely the youth. Here is a poem to reflect on that progress since June 16, 1976.\r\n(Image is not mine, obtained from unknown on Instagram)
  • Category: Sociopolitical
  • Views: 6
  • User favorite of this poem: L. B. Mek.
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Comments1

  • L. B. Mek

    'Recalling history from the back of your hand
    Ironic!
    Let me take you to the streets of Soweto
    Where human blood is still being shed'..
    Proof
    that, 'the Aged'
    are wilfully, Blind
    to the wisdom of Youth...
    (keep writing, keep believing
    keep Hoping and Living, while
    seeking, those shards
    of a shooting star's, imagery
    for even if your, eyes
    may not see the yield of your efforts
    maybe, someday
    another, will excavate and carry
    your dream
    into realisable, ambition..
    stay strong, dear Poet
    cherish your gifted smiles
    and painless, breaths
    of life
    and Fight, till your very last ink
    tattoos
    that blank page, you traverse
    as your path in life...
    in Hope, we Entrust!



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