I sit in my mind’s crevices
And witness all I now know to be true
My mother’s tongue
Squarely drummed out of me
My father’s strength
Sapped from within my bones
My ancestors’ resolve
Driven from every fiber of my being
I am drawn from my reverie
And behold all that I hoped wasn’t true Our homeland’s purity
Violated in ways the sun weeps at
Our names corrupted
Changed to echo their conquests
Our stories twisted
Filtered through soiled sieves
Our entire identity
Forced out of our sight by their yokes
I sit in the chasms of my psyche
Lamenting the undoing of my people…
Consigned to oblivion.
—
Read – Unwritten History – A Poem by Neba Terry Phebe Ngum – Cameroon
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