The Mirror We Broke Poem by Peter Edigah OBIAJE

It did not happen in a single night.
No sirens screamed, no bells cried out a warning.
Evil crept in softly, wearing familiar faces,
while goodness stood shivering in the corners of the street.
First, we saw the thief and looked away,
because the stolen goods were not our own.
We heard a neighbour screaming in the dark,
then bolted our windows and called it a private matter.
We watched the corrupt man climb to power,
his pockets fat with other people's sweat.
We spat our anger in whispers behind closed doors,
then grinned for the cameras when his convoy arrived.
The teacher who sold exam answers
was called clever by parents drowning in desperation.
The officer who stretched his palm at the checkpoint
was praised for "knowing how to survive."
The politician who gutted the public purse
was welcomed home with drums and dancing feet.
And so, inch by inch, the line began to blur.
What once burned our cheeks with shame
became simply the way things are done.
A boy watched his father cheat the system
and learnt that honesty was a fool's investment.
A young man watched the dishonest grow fat
while honest hands counted coins for rent.
He buried his dreams under the weight of an empty stomach
and wondered what truth had ever put on his plate.
Soon we stopped hiding our wickedness.
We dressed it in titles, uniforms and stamped papers.
We renamed stealing "opportunity, "
bribery "settlement, " greed "ambition."
We raised fine houses on the ruins of trust,
bought gleaming cars with money meant for the poor,
and lifted our glasses to celebrate success
without asking whose tears had paid the bill.
The same crowd that cheered the fraudster
began to sneer at the man who spoke the truth.
Bitter, they called him. Backward. Troublesome.
A stain on the peace of their comfortable lies.
He watched the hungry robbed of their bread,
the innocent condemned without a hearing,
the guilty slipping free through familiar connections,
and justice left standing barefoot outside the gate.
He spoke, and they told him to mind his business.
He protested, and they called it hatred.
He refused a seat at their table of corruption,
and overnight he became everyone's enemy.
What strange arithmetic governs our conscience,
that weighs the truth-teller as a greater threat
than the hand that robs a thousand homes
or the tongue that feeds a nation poison?
When did we begin to fear the one who warns us
more than the fire he is shouting about?
When did the mirror become our enemy
for showing the dirt on our faces?
Look around: the streets, the classrooms, the offices,
the pulpits and the polished halls of power.
The rot does not always hide in dark corners.
Sometimes it wears our clothes and answers to our names.
It sits with us at the family table,
laughs at our parties, shakes our hands,
speaks of God with a smooth, practised tongue
while quietly grinding the poor beneath its heel.
Yet evil does not turn good through repetition,
and a thousand clapping hands cannot make it right.
A lie is still a lie when it speaks from a throne.
A crime is still a crime when the rich commit it.
One day the children we taught by example
will inherit every lesson we refused to learn.
They will become the mirrors of our compromises,
and we may flinch at the faces staring back.
For every wrong we excuse becomes a seed,
and every seed will find its season in the soil.
What we tolerate today may rule us tomorrow.
What we celebrate today may bury us in shame.
So let the honest speak, though their voices shake.
Let the righteous stand, though they stand alone.
For silence is no shelter when injustice spreads,
and cowardice cannot build a house for truth.