Tears of the Helpless
For Oyo’s captives, and a maths teacher who solved his last equation in blood.
The chalk stopped mid-equation.
His cries fed only vultures.
He was doing what a meagre salary paid him to do:
teaching children to solve for x and y,
when the bush swallowed the school,
when morning turned to ransom notes and rifles.
Now the blackboard teaches nothing but absence.
Children count days, not numbers.
Women rock invisible cradles.
Men scratch ropes against wrists,
calculating escape not with algebra, but with animal will.
From Calgary, my heart drums: Oyo, Oyo
helplessness needs no passport.
But you who wear badges, who sit in air-conditioned offices:
no tweets.
no condolences.
Boots on red earth.
Maps toward the living.
This teacher did not die for his students to learn mourning
before they learn long division.
They are still alive.
That is the only variable that matters now.
Solve for rescue
before the chalk runs out everywhere.
©TheVillageBoy.
