Dufflite Xetaw Poet Free verse

The Fire They Fed Us

They said the enemy was among us—
that the neighbor’s prayer,
the shade of his skin,
the bend of her tongue
were signs of danger.
And we, trembling and tired,
believed them,
for fear is an easy garment to wear
when stitched by the powerful.

So we built fences where laughter once stood,
we spat on names older than memory,
we burned the bridges that once
carried our mothers to market.
Our hands, red with work,
turned red with rage,
and we called it righteousness.
We mistook the smoke for light.

In the towers above,
they raised glasses to our confusion—
sold us new gods in advertisements,
sold us new devils on the evening news.
Their words like coins tossed in the dust:
"Protect what’s yours."
And we did,
until nothing was ours anymore.

The earth grew quieter then.
The songs faded from the markets,
the streets echoed
with the hiss of suspicion.
Even the stars,
those old witnesses,
seemed to dim—
ashamed to see us
draw knives from our flags.

And one morning,
as the wind carried the smell
of the ruins we made,
we saw their faces—
the ones we had cursed—
and they looked like us.
The same hunger,
the same trembling hope,
the same tired eyes asking,
“Who taught us this?”

Now we sweep the ashes,
learning again to speak gently.
We water the soil with apology,
plant seeds named understanding,
wait for forgiveness to grow.
The powerful still whisper,
but some of us have learned
to close our ears—
to remember how easily
a spark becomes a sermon,
how quickly love
can forget its own name.

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