While They Still Laugh Poem by Stella Adaeze Ogwatta

Sitting,
there seems to be a soft whisper on my cheek.
Kinda softer than the laughter of children chasing tree shadows on Summer evenings,
Their laughter spilling like clean water..


One girl picks petals,
a boy builds a kingdom from sand and sticks.

Their joy is unguarded,
eyes wide with sky,
minds too new to measure malice,
hearts too light to hold hate.

And yet,
a knot tightens in my chest

...because I've seen what time can do.

The boy might be taught
that silence is strength
and tenderness, a weakness.
The girl may learn
to fold herself small
so she's easier to love.


They will meet the world,
as it's been made:
by tired hands, bitter mouths,
and adults who forgot
the sound of their own childhood joy.

I watch, and I wonder...
when do giggles become guarded grins? How?
When does trust wrinkle into suspicion?
When do dreamers turn cynical,
or worse...dangerous?

I adjust my gait, but my eyes are still, watching them, as steady as ever


I converse with myself...these children
will they remember?
The non cynic in me says they'll grow into
adults who still dance,
who speak without barbs,
and face their own inner struggles which they might release as lethal weapons against others.

... if we look at the world through the eyes of those
who were once children
on an ordinary afternoon
laughing at nothing
and everything, we can laugh like them, forever without chest knots...while they still laugh.


"The Walk Back"
Prelude to "While They Still Laugh"

I said,
"Let's go see something beautiful."
And he said yes...
with a smile that didn't flinch,
his tone didn't even warn.

the fare was paid,
...for the ride alone...the company...the ease of shared silence,
for the memory I hoped to make
less alone.

We walked part of the way- to save,
and to stretch joy across distance
with light conversation
and open air.
Really, I didn't think it a burden. Because he never objected.


On the way back,
when comfort was within reach, and we could easily have afforded it,
he asked that we walked again.

This was no algebraic calculation. It was cold logic. My hair stands now on my body as I remember the formula. I'm no math guru, so why did the equation give accurate answers to my trial at it?

I saw through the equation afterwards, everything had happened so fast, probably because I moved slow yet carefree.

But in maths classes, you have to be careful. Or you'd miss your steps.


I didn't miss my steps. The air wasn't stiff,
Thinking of it, was it to aid the smooth transmission of his formula which I didn't understand immediately?

... until I was able to see through his mind's inverse operations.

And suddenly, I felt
the weight of something unspoken
...I was to pay it back
in footsteps. The undoing.


Not a cruel word was ever said.
You'll learn that cruelty doesn't always speak, it's silent but not non-existent. I don't want them to learn such equations and formulas of lessons which weren't prepared for.

When I think of these little ones again,
how even small seeds
of pride, resentment, ego
grow into forests of
of inordinate self ambitions.

I still want to see them now... my eyes feeling soft as it rests on them...while they still laugh.


Going back,
they should remember that jaded and disillusioned are only words they saw in scribbles of lessons they agreed to attend,

but never learned or came fully to the realization of what they mean.