Nyirankundabanyanga

She swirls in the swivel chair,
 wig like plucked feathers of a dark swan,
 manicured finger tapping—painted bright red
 and loud as a monkey's bum—
 against the mahogany table where invoices of decolonization wait.

She smiles like her masters—soulless and conniving.
 She peppers her speech with proverbs,
 yet she praises the masters that chained
 and tortured the ancestors she quotes in boardrooms.

She spreads the ledgers like prayer mats,
 counting every dollar that flows
 through her crimson-lipped liberation speeches.
 She throws pennies in the smog filled air, a few fall at her feet.

Nyirankundabanyanga is back,
 singing the old song that appeases simpletons
 and exalts the master who signs her paychecks.
 She's demanding reports.

She estimates the casualties of the matrix—
 agonized spirits and bodies of her people
 that waited for salvation
  in pounds, euros and dollars that never arrived.

She is very decolonized,
 very funded,
 and very trapped in systems built
 so anyone who tries to leave suffers enough to return for refuge.

She commands on behalf of you-know-who,
 while her solemn pledge
 to decolonize her own mind dies in her throat—
 monetized and measured,
 invoiced and archived,
 decolonized and destroyed.



Izuba Rirashe

irabasubiza iti:

“I burn from my chest;
I command the shadows at my feet.
I spin in static motions of should, should, should…

I am that shapeshifting sun that calibrates its own light.
I swell, I burst; I expand beyond every space.
A piece of me dies and rises—dies and rises—dies and rises.

I was more than.
I am more than.
I will be more than.

Ejo.
Ejo.
I am more than.”



Iherezo ry'inzira

They stand outside the mirage (hawk-eyed),
Frenzied, they climb and latch onto the gangplank.

They want to sail away at any cost (on any ship),
Resolute, they hang and swing on the gunwale.

They know hope is a fleeting entity (trust it not),
Desperate, they gamble their souls for passage.

They find peace in the promise of their disembarkation,
Smug, they always knew. Victory belongs to the gone.




I     s   e     r   e     r   i

Clutching ash of pulse,
the hillside tilts on its side,
locusts rasp my name—
 I stagger into the dusk,
 a tempest dissolves me—void.

*Photo by Daniel Burka from Unsplash