How We Died Poem by Babalola Augustine Adeola

Not by the poison prepared by our enemies,
Nor by the hand of the hangsman for the sins we committed.
We did not die at a war orchestrated by other aliens.

No!
We didn't get strangled on our way to the farm,
Neither did we die by the makings of the goddess of the sea,
Nor by blood-sucking demons on the road.
Or by the angry skies,
Who is envious of men's wisdom to watch them fly like birds.

No!
We died on our seats while watching other men die.
While we chose to marry silence and dine with cowardice.
We died.

As we watched our life swim out of our body into the endless abyss,
At the square where we heard them break their words like eggs,
Where we allowed them feed us with poisons and taboos.

We died because we knew, yet refused to speak.
Rather, we clapped our shackled hands to the rhythm of theirdangling chains.
We died.

On that day we gave and received the brown envelope
To adjust the scale,
And afterwards looked up to the gods of our greed in appreciation.
We died.

If you won't remember, I will help you.
The day we started to align our reasons to suit our bellies.
And feared death as though it is the Evil One,
That day when we stopped fearing God and started worshipping men.
We died.

Humanity died when the poor defended the rich,
and buried the poor for the bellies of the rich.
We died.

When our ideologies lied in our bellies and secret chest
And not in the good of our neigbhours.
By our own very hands, we died.
While our carcasses roam the street.