TW: mention of death, violence, and murder
On July 24th, 1983
Sri Lanka fell
They call it Black July
Streets were wrecked
Stores were raided
Tamils were murdered
My father was ten.
He witnessed the hatred
He tells me his stories
The stories of the crowded trains
Desperate to escape
He tells me of the fear
Of the people
Trapped in a massacre
I remember these stories
But
Forty years later
And across the world
My history class began to cover South Asia
And on one slide
There was one bullet
For my people and their blood.
I remember feeling struck
Looking around the classroom
I realized that I was the only one that knew
About the mobs and the massacre
The bombs and the blood
The genocide.
I felt small
I felt weak
Against the shadow that had swallowed
The history of my country
It was dark and ignorant
It refused to remember the ravished
Simplified versions of history can erase
An entire people
Real history demands details
It demands truth
It demands.
It demands blood.
It forces us into reality
The reality of those people
My people
It forces us to remember
Because we can’t afford to forget
Editor(s): Chris F., Leandra S.
Photo Credits: Unsplash