He Died to Become Himself

They said he was Chimora,

The great man who lived ninety harvests ago.

A man whose words tamed angry crowds,

Whose feet knew the path to every home.

When Chimora died, the drums did not stop for days.

They said the land would never know peace again.

So they prayed,

"Let Chimora return to us,

Let him walk among us again."

And the wind whispered,

And the trees leaned close,

And a woman, untouched by marriage,

Began to carry life in her belly.

"A boy!" they cried.

"It is him! Chimora has returned!"

They named him before he could speak.

They gave him Chimora’s clothes,

Chimora’s name,

Chimora’s ways.

They told him when to smile.

When to speak.

How to sit, how to walk,

How to carry a spirit that was not his own.

They forgot to ask him who he was.

He lived like a shadow of a man,

A drum beaten by many hands.

He laughed,

But his soul did not follow.

He danced,

But his feet did not feel the ground.

Until one day

He climbed the hill alone.

He knelt before his Chi.

"Chi m, biko nyere m.

My spirit, show me my path."

He called to the spirit of the forest,

"See for me where my eyes are blind."

He called to the spirit of the mountain,

"Stand for me where I am weak."

He called to the spirit of the wind,

"Carry my voice to the ears of truth."

And in the silence,

The trees answered.

The mountain stood still.

The wind wept like a mother who had found her child.

He tore off Chimora’s robe.

He broke the staff they forced into his hand.

He said:

"I was not born to be a ghost.

I was born to live."

He did not hate Chimora.

But he buried Chimora that day.

And from that burial,

He rose.

Not as a legend.

Not as a spirit.

But as a man.

He died

not in body,

but in name,

in story,

in everything they forced him to be.

He died,

to become himself.