BIRTH — Curse or Blessing?

August 13, 2025

professormaurice

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HAKIZIMANA Maurice

BIRTH — Curse or Blessing?

I was born…
I was born…
But is birth a blessing?
Or is it a curse?

I was born—
Not asked to choose the dawn,
Nor the season.
I was born on August the second,
A Saturday evening.

Born of parents—
A father, a mother I did not know.
Born in a country,
A city, a ward in a hospital
I would discover only later.

Born on a continent, on a planet
Chosen by someone else.

On the day I was born,
A cry delivered me
Into the world.
Like a fallen fruit,
Without reason,
Bathed in dust
And blinding light.

The family cheered,
Women sang in joy,
My parents received gifts,
She and he held the victory…
But me?
But me?

No one asked
What skin color I’d choose,
What shape my nose would take,
What tongue I would speak,
Or what faith would claim me.

After I was born,
The arms that held me
Did not know the storms ahead.
My eyes, still wet,
Looked toward a horizon
With no map, no road.

Life gave me in one breath
The blaze of day and the shadow of night,
The feast’s bread, the salt of nothingness,
The laughter after,
The blood that spills.

I did not choose to arrive here.
It was a feast for others;
I celebrated nothing.

I was a naked soul,
No freedom,
No say.
I decided—
I will never celebrate my birth.

I was born—
And already injections pierce my skin,
Already pills slip down my throat,
And the world’s longing devours me with its gaze.

I was born—
But ten years later,
A long sword pierced my heart.
War raged,
Tears streamed down
The faces of men,
Of elders,
Of grandmothers.

We searched for a place to hide,
We searched for the way back
To our mother’s womb…
But no.

I was born,
But I could not live
In joy, in wholeness, in peace.
I dreamed of growing
Surrounded by parents, grandparents,
Uncles, aunts,
Cousins.

I dreamed of love’s blanket,
Of a home that breathes warmth,
Of a homeland,A nation
That builds its children to shine.

Instead—
I scrape through life,
Hit by the bullets of hatred,
Bleeding.

Birth is a curse
When you are a refugee,
When you are a servant,
A beggar,
A body for bullets.

Birth is a curse
When the world sees you as an animal,
A tool,
A thing to be used and broken.

But…
There are moments it is a blessing.

Birth is a blessing
When you shatter the chains.
Birth is a blessing
When you breathe free will.
Birth is a blessing
When you step out of the cage,
When you rise and fly on your own wings.

Birth is a blessing
When you live in joy
Among your own.
When every day is a harvest day,
When you have children,
Family,
A joy round as the sun.

I have decided to live.

Birth is a blessing
When one breath
Can make the trees and the sea dance.
Birth is a curse
When the night grows heavy,
And love turns to dust.

Yet—
I will drink to the last drop,
For at the edge of this journey
Still burns
The flame of the infinite.

Yes—
Be born, O Life,
Though all your ways are a mystery,
Though you brought me here without my consent
And hardened my path…

I have chosen to embrace
All that comes, until the very end.
For in the years since my birth
I have learned this truth:
To truly live,
One must not let their flame be swallowed
By this vast and hungry world—

But keep always
A trembling light of hope,
And leave behind
A torch for those who will remain,
So that the life you did not extinguish while breathing
Will remain in the hands of those
Who will never let it die,
For all eternity.

I was born…
And I will live..— Written by Maurice Hakizimana