[Verse 1] The missionary taught me verbs that bend like English rain Now I cannot name the beetle that predicts the drought again My mother's hands still read the soil—she knows when yams will swell But I must quote the Agricultural Handbook to break that spell [Chorus] They gave me letters sharp enough to cut my mother's tongue Now every truth I speak must wear a foreign grammar's lung Letters sharp enough to cut, but not enough to heal This silence growing where our common language used to feel [Verse 2] I write reports for Lagos now on "subsistence farming trends" While my uncle counts the stars to know when planting season ends The data's clean, the graphs align, the donors call it "progress" But no chart shows the weight of what a single wordlessness costs [Chorus] They gave me letters sharp enough to cut my mother's tongue Now every truth I speak must wear a foreign grammar's lung Letters sharp enough to cut, but not enough to heal This silence growing where our common language used to feel [Bridge] (Spoken, guitar drops to single notes) *The first thing a colonizer breaks isn't the body.* *It's the thread between the elder's mouth and the child's ear.* [Outro] Letters sharp... Letters sharp... (Single guitar harmonic fades unresolved)
0/500