Orochi C. Joshua Poet Free verse

Incomplete Confession

He came bearing
a polished memoir,
wrapped in the grammar of duty,
stitched carefully
with the threads of allegiance.

The pages marched proudly—
disciplined, measured,
dressed in the language
of statecraft and survival.

Yet beneath the polished sentences,
ghosts wandered barefoot.

The ashes still remembered
the names of children
history buried too quickly.
Mothers still carried
silence like broken calabashes
upon their heads.

And the rivers of the East—
they have not forgotten.

For memory is stubborn.
It sleeps lightly.
It wakes
at the sound of old justifications.

He spoke of unity,
of difficult choices,
of burdens carried
for the preservation of a nation.

But nations are not preserved
by eloquence alone.
Sometimes history kneels,
not for defense,
but for repentance.

And so the book arrived
like rain that touched the earth
without entering it.

For many sons and daughters
of the red soil,
it sounded less
like a full reckoning
and more
like a door left half-open—

an incomplete confession
standing quietly
before a wounded generation
still waiting
for language heavy enough
to carry sorrow.

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