poem most likely to be burnt

Farai Chaka, Zimbabwe

most of what we call history is an arm

pushing us backwards i wake up

to sunlit streets and dirty walls

and to love something also means to surrender yourself to the thought

*this has failed* i love my country

the way we grieve slowly, painfully,

sometimes not at all most of what we

call history is clean streets and cheap suits and gleaming cities

and countless white men most nights

i watch youtube videos of cats and pranks

and lose myself in the triviality of Western

humour and most nights my country is fire

and my countrymen wood

my descendants moved through landscapes

with nothing but hunger and a few tools

and it feels ungrateful to write angry poems

about our democracy but let it be known that l am tired

and drained most of what we call history is the promise

of erasure our old ones speak of heavens, afterlives

and other forms of transcendence but

not inheritance most of what l want

is most of what we don't have; visible starlight and peaceful nights

in art galleries i always veer towards abstractions and this is

another way of saying i am used to emptiness

disguised as country colours and promises all it takes to lose hold

of a precious thing is to see soldiers

open fire on protesters most of what we call

history is misrememberance we were never happy

with clean streets and cheap suits and white men

but we aren't happy now either this is what

they call irony this is what they call a poem

most likely to be burnt

Farai Chaka is a first year university student studying Legislative Law. He likes reading novels, listening to albums and taking long aimless walks.