Posted by Bolodeoku Oladipo Peter on
Did we not all start life together?
With hopes and dreams high and stupid;
Did we not all run the streets together?
Laughter and shouts, a bother so loud;
We actually thought we would always be together forever.
Did we not discover together to play with grasshoppers?
Our tiny legs making feeble attempts at speed;
Did we not all climb trees together?
Hearts and mind pounding as we gaze into the cloud;
We actually thought we would always be together.
Did we not discover puberty together?
That image in my heart still vivid;
Did we not eat together?
Hands and mouth unwashed yet allowed;
We actually thought we would always be together.
O! We did explore education together;
The beginning of our separation.
Some chose science, some commercial and other ones art.
(Smiles)…………………
O! We did explore the opposite sex together;
The joy of new discoveries with choices that complicated our formation.
Some chose tall, some short we all played a part.
(smiles)…………………
We were innocent, untouched by life’s cruelty.
We were kids, all small and tiny but happy.
We were fearless, all gay and lovely.
We were young, nobody told us the proverb of “twenty”.
I wish someone took the time to explain to us.
We would have prepared earlier and better with more force;
I wish someone took the time to say: “with life, no pause”
We would have girded well enough for the demand of focus.
Today, twenty years after.
I have been to the play grounds;
Greeted only by the chorus of the wind and the loneliness of the ground.
The laughter and shouts now faint, a whisper of past in the wind.
I tried so hard to form some of the old faces in my mind;
Some I got, and for some, just the voices of when we were kids.
Yeah, my heart yearned again for the lost time.
We thought we would always be together.
Life happened to us all, marring and making.
Hurting and healing.
Some survived, some went with the wind.
Today, some of us are still alive.
Happy and lively,
But touched forever with the “twenty”
I still have vivid memories of the life of twenty years ago.
A wistful wish it had become;
For it will never come back.
Twenty years, Twenty children…