“I Have Seen the Beasts”

from the ash-covered tongue of the one who remembers

I was here when the land still had a name. Before maps. Before borders. Before shame. We spoke with smoke, wove stories into thread, painted memory on clay. We did not need to own the earth —we listened to it. Then came the sails, cutting the sea like knives.

White teeth. White flags. White gods. They did not knock. They claimed. And when the swords grew tired, they sent teachers. Books full of silence. History with missing pages.

They called us wild. Called us poor. Called us broken.

But I remember: we were thinkers. we were makers.

They planted flags in our mouthsand called it progress. And when their gold ran out, they turned to sugar, to sweat, to borders, to new names for the same old hunger. Empire never died. It just changed masks. It wore a crown. Then a suit. Then a badge. Now, it wears a screen.

And when people started asking questions, they needed chaos. So they built it. Gave guns to the forgotten. Fed fear like fire. And watched us burn. They called them mareros. But I saw the hands behind the curtain. I saw three beasts crawl from that fire: Fear, with boots and barking dogs. Ignorance, in classrooms and pulpits. Injustice,counting dollars soaked in dust. They walk beside you. You see them every day. You just stopped noticing.

I stitched their story into cloth. Wove it with the screams, dyed it with the ash of all I’ve lost. This is not fashion.It is a wound, reopened.A spell, broken.A warning, disguised.So wear it carefully.It does not belong to you.It belongs to those who vanished. And those who still can’t speak.