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Through the dust, my mind still recites alphabets to the wind.
I wanted to learn every syllable I needed,
Every matrix that could build up ideas,
Every algebra I was born to solve.

Where I grew is the bedrock of ignorance.
The belief is that foreign knowledge will erase our heritage—
But it doesn’t.

I can solve many X's in my head,
But there’s not a single grain from my mother’s farm
I won’t multiply with immense profit.

The calculus I carry stands a chance at winning,
Yet I still crave the kind of knowledge
That builds roads, draws out buildings,
And makes every waiting child
Become another epitome of wisdom.

I just need a chance to prove I’m worth every trial.
I can face competitions meant to break me down.
And I will rise—
Because no one is born with knowledge.
We all grow to learn.
Education is a right now children should be stripped of...
Where does peace go when it’s gone?
Does it disappear with the moon before dawn?

Children who once slept on beds now wake up on lifeless bodies.
They see the ruins of crumbled cities and broken homes.

They hear the deafening sound of missiles and bombs
That sent their parents missing.

They look around for something to remember—
But they are too innocent to understand grief.

Their bellies will grumble from morning till night
Until they give in to hunger—
Hunger for food, hunger for warmth, hunger for medicine.

None was given in exchange.
Instead, they are hunted down to graveyards.

Toys are meant to be played with,
But what falls into their hands are pieces of blasted bodies.

A young boy with an amputated hand looks at himself,
Then at his mother, asking:
“Where are the remaining parts of my body?”
A question that tears apart every whole in his mother’s soul.

With no strength left in her,
She cries—with no answers to spill out.

A young girl who once studied in classrooms
Now studies how many casualties lie on these battlefields.

Children who once ran barefoot in the dust and danced with joy—
Now run from the echoes of guns.

Where does peace go when it’s gone?
Is it hiding behind the triggers?
Or buried under the bodies piled up in death?

Peace and justice should not be just words—
But action and purpose.
Peace is found where love and unity dwells. The moment love vanishes, unity and peace follows suite respectively
Ayodeji Oje Oct 2020
See pictures,
they've got
voice.

Feel words,
they've got
womb.

Observe nature,
they've got
us.

— The End —