A Nation’s heartbeat never truly Dies

The streets are thick with whispers,

the kind that wrap around throats—

heavy as midnight chains.

Men in dark suits and darker eyes

paint the night with their unholy missions.

They come with guns and gags

for the ones who dare dream in daylit streets,

for the ones who breathe freedom's air

and make the soil of truth stir beneath our feet.

The leaders sip from the sweet chalice of our sweat,

their bellies swollen with our stolen tomorrows.

They call it governance—

we call it robbery with violence,

a parade of suits and speeches,

where laws are ropes to strangle us gently,

where taxes rain like the monsoons of malice

on mothers who sleep on empty stomachs.

Tell me, where do you bury our dying dreams

dreams of a nation that once danced under the sun?

How do you stitch  wounds that bleed

through generations, seeping into soil and soul?

In the alleys, we find remnants of hope—

discarded like pamphlets after rallies,

torn and trampled by those

who feed on our cries for justice.

Our heroes, our sentinels,

are plucked from the night like ripe fruits,

vanished into silence,

like footprints washed by ruthless tides.

The land of a thousand voices is hushed,

a chorus choked by the hands of men in numberless outbacks.

They say it's for peace,

but we know peace never walked

in boots stained with innocent blood.

Oh motherland Kenya, cradle of promises unmet,

your rivers are running thick with betrayal.

Your children are taught to fear

the hands that feed them lies

while pocketing their future.

We are the currency in their crooked trade,

a people taxed to death,

while the ministers toast to another mansion

built on the bones of the impoverished.

Yet, the sun rises still,

defiant over the hills of injustice.

The heartbeat of the nation persists,

a drum that will not be silenced,

even as they smother us

with laws written in the blood of martyrs.

Let them know—

we are the roar beneath the calm,

the storm behind the silent sky.

And when the hour of reckoning comes,

it will be swift and unrelenting,

for the blood of the oppressed

is the ink that writes the revolutions. 

And this land, drenched in grief,

will rise from the ashes,

for a nation’s heartbeat never truly dies.

© Bunguswa Brian