BAMENDA: A Song Of Thorns & Light

"BAMENDA: A SONG OF THORNS & LIGHT"

This is a story—
our story.
Of a town where fear sits on rooftops like a vulture,
where pain stitches itself into the fabric of market squares,
where grief hums in the silence of locked doors at dusk.
Bamenda—
a name that means "they will not bend"—
yet here we stand, backs arched beneath the weight of "what if?"
Watching the sun bleed into the hills,
wondering if tomorrow will taste like ash or honey.

This is a story 
his story:
A man whose hands are maps of cracked earth,
who trades sweat for coins that vanish like morning dew.
His children’s hunger is a chorus he conducts with empty palms.
And when he stumbles home,
the echoes "Papa fail!" greet him like stones.
Yet he rises—always rises—
to kneel at the altar of "try again."
Breathe.

This is a story
Her story
A woman who planted her body in the soil of this city,
only to harvest thorns.
They called her "too loud" when she screamed,
"too weak" when she bled,
"too much" when she loved.
Now her voice lives in the cracks of prison walls,
in the whispers of market women who nod and say:
"Na so life be."
Breathe.

Na de story dis—
of a people fed lies like communion wafers:
"You are beggars."
"You are broken."
"You are nothing without their boot on your neck."
We wore these chains like jewelry,
too afraid to rattle them…
UNTIL TODAY.

Today, we spit out their poison and taste our own names!
Abakwa—
we curse not the darkness;
we BECOME the fire.
To you who took the mantle—
not with a whisper, but a ROAR—
who understood:
Fate is a coward that flees from the bold!
To you who kneel not in prayer, 
but to PLANT BOMBS OF HOPE
in the chests of the weary!
You who know that every wall is a door
that every scar is a compass
that even when the sky falls,
we will catch it with our spines!

They will say you walk on water—
"Liar!"
Then claim you can’t swim when you do!
"Hypocrite!"
Let them talk—
we march to the beat of OUR OWN DRUMS!
Raise your voice until it DROWNS THE GUNS!
Until the mountains shake loose their shadows!
Until the world remembers:
BAMENDA BREATHES STILL.

For the mothers who stitch wounds with song…
For the fathers who build futures from scrap metal…
For the children who draw suns on bullet-riddled walls…
We are the phoenix.
We are the reckoning.
We. Are. ALIVE.
Abakwa
Breathe.

Mottanni
Poet|SpokenWord Artist|Voice Artist
2025

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#ABAKWA
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