this time, i am writing to you, not with a broken, bruised, or shattered heart.
(listen to me, this time)
i lost my tongue, fingers, & any other way i could
calligraph, spell, or draw the alphabets of grief. i come to you, with watery, painless tears of mine—
of love, freedom, & of
everything, joy. prisoners, we were. in our homeland. in our hearts.
we ate nothing, but our agonies. drank nothing, but our weeping, salty tears.
you, the once hopeless, handcuffed bird. look at your garden, it’s no more filled with skulls, corpses, or reddened by the flooding water of blood. but of green, & blossoming roses.
this time, cry out your heart. i know, it’s the only way you can giggle. write the name of your fatherland, with the colours of blood, i know, it’s the only way you
can celebrate. this time, you’re no more a prisoner; wander under the shades of all the trees; the canopy of the sky, the dangling stars. but i wish, this poem’s written
someday, not in tears. not in a dream.

– Salim Yakubu Akko