You hurt me….!
worse than an arrow
my heart is filled with sorrow.
You hurt me
worse than a bullet
not only the flesh
but the soul is also dead,
the day you turned me refugee
knocking other peoples’ gate.
This I shall never forget.
You hurt me
Stand accused as an enemy.
Read the anger
of the child left in hunger
begging in the street,
innocence damaged
before any chance to stand on its feet.
Read the lips –
the ተጋዳላይ prisoner’s lips,
they seem they are sealed
but words leap
warning the omen
the disgrace,
you will face,
will be just the same;
your predecessor were put in place.
Read the lips
they look sealed
but words leap
out and travel deep
to the earth’s womb
to wake up the children that have gone asleep
and inform their mothers
no more that they need to weep.
Even if they would
they couldn’t.
Their glands are kaput.
Look at the woman,
hunched and old
contrary to feminine gene,
barren and bald.
Look at the man’s face
creases criss-cross,
because of stress and distress
you caused.
Look at the contours criss-crossed,
in his presence
you could hardly see any trace,
of a human race that he ought to be.
Look at their anger cupped and restrained
until it reaches the size of a mountain
and the vastness of a plain.
Oh! Yes talk of the contours,
one day they will leap
out and about,
like a whip,
A cap-a-pie,
bound you as Egyptian mummies
did from the limbs,
through the hips
to the ribs.
But unlike as in the pyramid,
they will throw you alive
into the jaws of hungry beast instead.
And then you will
vanish million times dead
than those you mopped… to their death…
No history for you to be written
Except the nightmarish memory
People will talk about,
who the devil you were.
By Belay Ambelay