How Beautiful We Were

by Imbolo Mbue

We knew what guns could do, but we’d never considered death by bullets.

I want to give the children simple things. Clean water. Clean air. Clean food. Let them soil it if they like it dirty—how dare anyone refuse them this right?

We’ll sleep at the bus stop and be here to meet him tomorrow. We’ll sleep on a pile of garbage if we must, for a chance to reclaim our land.

I wish I didn’t detest my husband for dooming me to a life of being solely responsible for a broken girl and a lost boy and an old woman, all of them laying upon my back their anger and grief, with no one to bear mine but me, because it had to be so.

In this country, governments and corporations are friends too. Over here, governments also sit back and do nothing while corporations chain people up and throw them in bondage.

We’ll roar until they give us back our dignity. Our voices will be the fire that will burn down every system of injustice, and from the ashes we will build a new nation.”