A shroud descends—not night, but something darker—
No moon dares pierce this pitch that grips my country.
The air itself wears iron, thick with absence,
As shadows gnaw the edges of the light.

They marched, their voices hymns, their hands upturned—
Palms cradling sparks of hope, now drowned in crimson.
Flags fluttered, fragile as moth-winged prayers,
Before the void roared, teeth bared and gleaming.

Night, that thief, slipped through the cracks of reason,
Plucked stars from skies and stuffed them in its pockets.
The soil, once rich with yam and cassava dreams,
Now bloats with the metallic stench of slaughter.

I count the dead in raindrops—each one names
A mother’s wail, a father’s hollowed stare.
The earth, a drunkard, staggers under weight,
Gulping down the wine of butchered innocence.

My tears carve rivers where the roads once ran,
Yet no current cleanses this fevered scorching.
The question rots, unburied, in the square:
When did our anthem become a funeral dirge?

Does your hunger, O land, demand such feasts—
Flesh of your children served on platters of silence?
Will you birth only ghosts from your womb now,
Their whispers threading through the marketplace?

The night still breathes. It lingers, unrepentant.
But dawn is a stubborn seed—we’ll dig for it
With bloodied hands and shattered fingernails,
Until the soil remembers how to bloom.