The echo of the victory drums loud enough to shun the voices of our struggle,

Of blood stains and fallen heroes.
Caged and blinded sheroes.

Of our triumph over dictatorship, tyranny and injustice.

But see, this has been cut short,
The sound of the drum dulled.

Our long buried wounds pricked back to life,

Our souls murdered and spirits forced back to those dark terrifying nights of oppression.

Only this time,
Our voices have been parceled with a bow around it,

And handed to us with a smile.

We can speak our truth loud enough to numb their skulls but they won’t take heed.

Hail to the era of our disguised tragedy dubbed era of change.

But heyy, we have once again been wisely caged.

Only this time,
We will climb the ladder of change as

one people.

One voice.

One nation.

Only to be pushed down and forced to Climb back again,

As one people.

One voice.

One nation.

Only this time,

the ultimate truth shall be changed to suit one, two, three….damn the numbers, all of them!

But “it’s all for the betterment of our nation” they say.

Only this time,
We are putting young people first,

After the oldies

Funny how we never saw that coming, after majority of the cabinet members are aged 50 and above.

Only this time,
We have been caught up with a government of:

“We will hurt you, but with a smile”

“You shall speak, but we are not listening”

“We will lead you to a daylight democracy but drag you through the dark nights of injustice”

Only this time, “we will stab you, but kindly”

“We will sit back relax and respond to all your questions with the blame game”

“We’ll step down, but maybe only if you say so”

From afar, I see mother Gambia crawling back to rescue her children.
But she has been stabbed 22 × 365 times and still counting

So she isn’t getting here anytime soon.

So again, only this time,
We shall not fold our arms when we can do so much

Stay mute when we can speak

Get shackled again, when we voted you in, to start with!

Poetry