Where has our humanity gone?

With a heavy heart, I ask again where humanity has gone

Tell me when did it gathered its

Belongings

Packed its bags

Zipped them up and slipped away from our midst, leaving us with nothing but

Only hollow corridors echoing what used to be there

The question still stands: Where has humanity gone?

Was it stolen in the dusk of the day? OR

Did we, at our own will, give it away, with our own hands,

Cast it aside like something burdensome no longer convenient to carry Where is our humanity buried?

Under which rock did we place our compassion?

Which corner did we hide our conscience?

Did we somehow inject anaesthesia into our ability to feel?

The pain of another human being?

My THOUGHTS are agitated

My SOUL is restless

They squeeze in

To pace the narrow corridors of my body

UNABLE to find TRANQUILITY

To understand how WE HAVE BECOME UNRECOGNIZABLE TO OURSELVES

The hands that were meant to build

Have become the hands that strike

What will they say?

TELL ME WHAT WILL THEY SAY

When they look down to acknowledge that the land that they fought for The years spent on gushing wounds, cries, and pleas, to fashion a path for freedom and comfort

That same land is spitting venom

The hearts that once loved have hardened into weapons

Weapons formed because of differences

How did we forget that we are Africans first before our nationalities

How did we end up like this, that question still ring in my ears

My heart aches in loud silence

With a deep, unbearable sorrow,

That has found refuge in my bones, refusing to leave

It screams in loud silence, for the woman who wonders if they will be there to see the sunrise tomorrow.

While guns shot echoes in broad day light.

It cries for the women who clutch their children close to their chests

Their arms trembling, their eyes filled with tears, accompanied by a heavy heart.

Their eyes wander, searching for a safe place

In a world that has become hostile

How should they respond when their child asks, “Why?”

“Why do they hate us?”

What words are stronger than hers?

To help her shield their heart from the devastating truth

How do they soothe a child who has seen hatred wear the face of the neighbour?

My heart bleeds in heavy drops

It bleeds for my brothers

Each drop carries the weight of humiliation, they were subjected to

Each drop carries the dignity that was torn from them,

Each drop carries their humanity that was questioned

Each drop carries their worth that was reduced to their nationality

My heart continues to bleed in heavy drops

Weeping for lost humanity

Where existence has been reduced to our nationality

Is it not cruelty in its human form, beating someone because their accent sounded a bit different

Cruelty unmasked

As it walks proudly in daylight in the face of ordinary people

My heart grieves for my sisters

The women who have already endured enough, carrying the burden of generations

Of hunger and hardships

My sisters who have sacrificed pieces of themselves

So that their sibling may PERHAPS know a different life

My heart grieves in loud silence,

It echoes the sound of the raised fist against whose hand writes African as their ethnicity

We have forgotten that before borders, passports, and flags dividing land, we are one

We are Africans

We have forgotten that before nationality, tribes, language, and arbitrary lines written by hands that never knew our soil

We are born of a woman's womb and kissed by the same sun.

And yet we have forgotten that we are one

If the sun does not discriminate before it rises

The rain and snow never asked for documentation before it falls

The wind does not stop at the border to ask for permission before it passes

But….we…. still… do…. it

We have turned our nationalities into weapons

What kind of nation denied a wounded body the right to heal

What kind of people close the gates of hospitals

How, when did we reach a point where pain is measured by nationality

Where suffering is met with rejection

Illness carries no passports, nor do pathogens ask where you were born before they invade your body

A wound does not refuse to bleed in a foreign country

As I watched them flee

With nothing but the clothes on their back and the terror in their eyes

My heart aches for my mothers

My heart bleeds for my brothers

My heart grieves for my sisters

It mourns for the humanity that has been misplaced

With a heavy heart, I ask again, where has humanity gone

Tell me when did it gathered it's

Belongings

Packed its bags

Zipped them up and slipped away from our midst, leaving us with nothing but

Only the hollow corridors echoing what used to be there

The question still stands: Where has humanity gone?

Nikiwe Lubisi