Clear as the Taste of Day
Through a long time.
I remained in a heap of knowledge.
None made sense;
Like a million jigsaw pieces did not.
I was a hypocrite;
Good friends, bad friends stirred up my courage.
As the stars shone down on me, inviting me.
I told them to go away
Because they were trying to be heroes.
I did not look up and
I did not let those stars be heroes,
I was correct.
The stars were not my heroes.
As I realised the struggle of people in such wordlessness.
Images became clear.
Even as "No woman, no cry" played.
Every string was a vibration of the truth
Getting more melodious;
Ever more rhythmic.
Helping me understand more to the legacy.
Such a cage of education does no justice to certain lives.
My heart pounds.
It hits the surface of my ribs;
Blessed with the truth.
I know this is a moment that comes
A single time in this life on earth.
It has come to me while I live so young.
And I let the tears roll down unto my lap.
And in this great future of so so many things;
It will be of no point;
If the past has brought me to my knees.
I sit down on a cold, hard pavement
On an isolated road.
I sit and sit, tears rolling down into the gutters.
Nobody comes to ask me about what I now cognise.
I feel like I will die with no means to tell the truth.
I feel so frustrated that my stomach slowly and painfully rips.
My eyes have no more water for tears.
In the maxims of many of the hardest struggles of history in the making,
I burn my own mind in madness.
The same mind that told me the truth.
Is so burned that I have forgotten.
At the least, I know that I have lived.
I have lived
And there has been a day
That was perfect.
About This Poem
This is perhaps the most emotionally raw poem in the collection, documenting a moment of revelation so overwhelming it becomes unbearable. The speaker experiences a sudden clarity—seeing through the "cage of education" and understanding "the struggle of people in such wordlessness"—accompanied by Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry." But rather than liberation, this truth brings anguish: the speaker sits on a pavement weeping, feeling unable to communicate what they've learned, ultimately burning out the very mind that showed them the truth. The poem captures the paradox of enlightenment: once you've seen certain truths about injustice and suffering, you cannot unsee them, yet language fails to convey the insight, leaving you isolated with knowledge. The reference to stars "trying to be heroes" suggests a rejection of false saviors or easy answers. The closing lines find a fragile peace—though the truth has been forgotten in the burning, the speaker can at least affirm "there has been a day / That was perfect," suggesting the revelation itself, however brief and destructive, was worth experiencing.