Once, you told me this story, so full of life,
Today, when I hear it, it’s death that I hear!
A nostalgia so real,
A painful memory that whispers your presence.

A presence so absent, an absence so painfully present!
You were life, you were the journey.
Life is made to last, even if, for that, we must endure
The agony of calling you, again and again,
Of invoking you forever!

Outside, they say you are no more,
But inside me, you scream louder than ever.
“The dead do not speak,” they tell me,
But it’s the living who murmur the words left hanging,
The living, these cemeteries without tombstones.

Since you left, you’ve taken up residence in my young graveyard.
You, who were the cement, so loving, so alive.
Once, you told me this story,
But today, it’s a sharp, violent pain,
A stabbing that awakens your smile
And today steals mine.

I can no longer laugh at this story.
The tale is no longer the same: it begins with you, full of life,
Then life gives way to disappearance,
And it’s at that moment I can no longer love this story.

Par Aliane UMUTONIWASE