When Leaders Rewrite History for Applause

they sat
around a fire made of paperbacks
burning books they once cited—
only the footnotes curled into ash,
never the praise on the cover.

you watched with a raised brow,
half-willing to protest,
but the warmth, oh the warmth
felt like recognition.

“I was there,”
I shout across the courtroom of hindsight,
where the walls
are built of amnesia bricks,
painted with national anthems
in disappearing ink.

you remember what they said—
no, not exactly what they said,
but how they said it.
velvet voice, silver mic,
camera flash like divine approval.

He declared,
“this was never broken,”
as your mother whispered
in the language of scars.

I remember her:
wrinkled map of memory,
speaking truth
in a dialect
your textbooks refused to translate.

then She—
the one with eyes like fossilized news—
stood up and laughed:
“my village was never a battleground,
only a canvas
for their victory speech.”

they rewrote dates
into celebrations,
named children after
forgotten victims
and called it progress.

meanwhile,
you sit in a museum curated
by the victors' grandchildren.
each exhibit a confession
in reverse.

here’s the flag
they draped over a fallen lie.
here’s the statue
built from vanished census data.
here’s the oath
your silence signed
while your mind wandered
to a forbidden article
that was never archived.

I scribbled footnotes
in the margins of their press releases,
crossed out “freedom”
and replaced it with
“stage direction.”

They—
the narrators in tailored suits—
smiled with teeth
sharp enough to cut
the ribbon of remembrance.

You were told:
“clap now.
the past is over.”

but I
still hear the weeping
in time signatures
that no anthem dares conduct.

She tried
to speak her version,
but the microphone
translated her pain
into applause.

the truth,
when wrapped in patriotic foil,
tastes like candy
and chokes like betrayal.

They said:
“don’t dig up old bones.”
but the ground
keeps coughing.

You dream of questions
and wake with
government-issued answers.

I gave a speech
in the empty plaza,
reciting memories
you weren’t allowed to inherit.

She laid flowers
on a plaque that read:
“Here History Blinked.”

and still
They host parades
on fault lines.

You march,
half-aware,
feet keeping time
with a song
you didn’t write.

I tear down
billboards of
revisionist glory,
only to find
mirrors beneath.

who is clapping?
you ask.
who taught them
to confuse erasure
with elegance?

They declared
a new holiday
on the day the library
collapsed under censorship,
and you were offered balloons.

Meanwhile, I dig.
I dig where memory
has been exiled.
I find voices
pressed into soil
like seeds.

She waters them
with lullabies
no one records.

When leaders rewrite
they use gold ink,
but gold
can’t hold the weight
of truth.

And you—
you might still forget,
because forgetting
is comfortable
like a hymn
sung in the wrong direction.

But I will not.
I was there.
I am there.
I will be there—
a ghost in the margins,
an echo in the archives
they can’t seal.

She hums to herself
as she stitches back
the tapestry of stories
unapproved for textbooks.

You pause.
You listen.
The tune is unfamiliar,
but your heartbeat
matches its rhythm.

And when the fire returns—
because it always does—
don’t bring water.
Bring mirrors.
Bring notebooks.
Bring names.

Because they
will always try to rewrite,
and you
must always remember
who wrote it first.

And I—
I will keep planting
the unspoken
until the applause
dies down,
and the truth
finally
has room
to speak.

#RewriteOfHistory #Resistance #TruthMatters #Poetry #Political #MemoryAndJustice #VoicesUnheard #HistoryAndPower #ErasureAndEchoes