The Policeman Finds Me Guilty of Joy
The Body Is a Courtroom Where I Am Always on Trial
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I Still Believe in My Country
I still believe in my country, not because I am immune to disappointment nor because I’ve stopped counting the ways we fail each other, but because here, people keep doing small impossible things. Someone shares fuel during a blackout, counts the litres like prayer beads, says take it, I’ll manage, even though the night arrived prepared. Offices open late or not at all. Files sleep on desks longer than dreams. I still believe in my country when my hands shake, scrolling past grief, when the numbers don’t add up but the bills do, but they still reach out, still type messages that say are you safe?, still cook food meant for more people than showed up, because absence has taught us to overprepare. A boy plays football with a plastic bottle & calls it a match because stadiums are far & promises farther. A mother names her child Blessing like the word can stand guard, like syllables can do what policies refuse to. A man returns a wallet with nothing missing except despair, shrugs like decency is not heroic, just necessary. Tell me this is not something. Tell me this does not count. I still believe in my country because joy keeps happening without permission—at bus stops where time is mismanaged, in markets where prices change without warning, in the way music escapes from phones with cracked screens louder than official statements, because laughter still ambushes grief mid-sentence. Because someone always knows the words to a song everyone thought we forgot. I still believe in my country even when belief feels foolish, even when it feels like loving someone who hasn’t learnt how to say sorry yet. The roads are tired, yes. The promises are bruised. Still, people keep walking, keep carrying their lives in plastic bags, faith & patience in their mouths, ‘e go better.’ I still believe in my country when hospitals ask for everything except relief, when classrooms echo with too many names & not enough chairs. & yet, teachers still stay late when survival becomes a curriculum we all pass unwillingly. Yet, teachers still stay late. Nurses still find veins in the dark. We still argue about football like joy is a civic duty. I still believe in my country when children draw houses bigger than the ones they live in, add windows that open, add trees first, colour the sun generously. I still believe in my country because care keeps leaking through the cracks. After all, even broken places know how to hold water for a while. I still believe in my country, not with flags in my mouth, but the way you believe in a song you don’t know all the lyrics to yet but keep humming anyway, trusting the chorus will find you when it matters.
