Written piece
Dear Lusaka
Liam Tembo
Zambia
About this piece
A Poem about my complicated relationship with the capital city of my home country Zambia. Lusaka will always be my home but after losing multiple family members to the city, visits often feel painful. A poem about learning to love Lusaka again despite the loss of loved ones.
As a child, I couldn’t find peace without holding your hand,
but now I've given my heart to the past
Should I dig up their graves, to love you the right way?
Last year two more apparitions I’ll never escape
Three long memories slide down my face
Cantankerous tears
Is home a person, or a place?
We crumble in these castles of definition
I know to actualise my emotions I have to speak
but the valley of silence is all that I know
If you’re my Desdemona,
my timor mortis is Iago
Haunted by my name and the macabre,
I only see you at funerals
How many of my family have you killed?
It hurts to explore you
Nights are the most difficult,
memories of the departed swirl around my mind like mosquitos
Laying down on the grass
Staring into the moon like I know her
Selene, last of the Lunarians
If she could find solace in isolation
Maybe, I can find the strength to love you all by myself
Dear Lusaka