“Truth” by WITS Student Suhayb Ismail
January 20, 2022
My name is truth …
but you could call me right on my ancestors’ history,
because being right is telling stories with meaning…
Remember me.
I believe in equality for my brother’s children …
I am built from glass which reflects truth and shatters with lies…
Remember me.
I come from strength that my African ancestors have shown
in true times of peril …
My people are known for resilience
like the water that can’t be broken…
Remember me.
Something people don’t know about me is I’m curious…
They think I might be uncultured …
but the truth is I want to know the culture of others…
I wish I had known who I was going to grow up as …
because when I was younger, I would have changed faster…
Living in my neighborhood makes me want to imagine a perfect world…
The radio in my head plays spontaneous…
And it sounds like a rhythm…
Sometimes it isn’t so easy for me to believe how broken thoughts create distorted memories…
My shadow looks like moonlight, a hope of what I would become…
When I’m sad, my heart sounds like a drum…
But when I’m feeling strong it sounds like a beat…
If I could sing myself a lullaby it would sound like a prayer for the future…
In my next life I’ll be a memory of a household name…
Suhayb Ismail wrote this poem while a student at Washington Middle School with WITS Writer-in-Residence Daemond Arrindell. Suhayb read the poem to open our Literary Arts Series event with Bernardine Evaristo on January 24, 2022.