Once we were light
But the world weighed us down
Drowned out our cry of resistance
And put a bandage over our eyes

A desperate cry for help
Before we fell silent
And started to look silently at our children
The way once our parents looked at us

Now we know what they were thinking:
Retain your magic! Retain your lightness!
Even as they said to us worriedly:
You have to learn to fit into the system –

Knowing it was not the way
But knowing no other way
Or knowing it but not having the heart
To push us off the cliff –

Because not everybody grows wings
When falling through the gap.
The generation gap.
Now we watch our children worriedly

Wanting them to become like us
And wanting them to stay themselves too.
Once we were light
But the world weighed us down.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije