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A Slam Poem
I am the story you never finished reading—
the page you folded,
the chapter you abandoned,
the character you thought was too loud,
too stubborn,
too unapologetic to fit between the margins you built.
I am the sentence you underlined
but never understood,
the line you circled
hoping it would make sense later,
the annotation you scribbled in frustration
because you realized
the words were not broken—
you were simply not ready for them.
I am the voice that rises
when everyone tells me to whisper.
I am the “No” that escaped
from a lifetime of forced “Yes.”
I am the echo that refuses to die
even when the room goes silent,
even when the world decides
my volume violates their comfort.
Listen—
I didn’t come here to impress you.
I came to confront you.
To tell you that silence is a prison
and I kicked the door open
the day I learned my name
was not a cage
but a continent—
sprawling, sovereign, ungovernable.
My voice is not a guest here.
It is the landlord.
It is the architect.
It is the renegade engineer
redesigning every wall
that once told me to stay small.
Because I was raised on a diet
of swallowed words and broken apologies,
taught to break myself into pieces
to fit inside the tight grip of expectation.
"Be quiet," they said.
"Be calm," they said.
"Be agreeable," they said—
as if my existence was a contract
and they held the pen.
But let me tell you something:
I burned the contract.
I tore the script.
I threw the whole narrative
into the fire and watched it crackle
like the last lie
I ever allowed to define me.
I am the paragraph
that refuses to justify.
I am the metaphor
you mispronounced
but could never forget.
I am the poem
that demanded to be spoken
like a war cry,
not a whisper.
I am the storm you didn’t forecast.
The hurricane that wrote its own path.
The wildfire that refused
to apologize for burning
what tried to contain it.
I am the truth dressed in thunder.
A heartbeat louder than tradition.
A revolution with a pulse.
A rebellion with a rhythm.
A language that refuses extinction.
And if my voice shakes the room—
good.
Rooms should tremble
when truth walks in.
Walls should shiver
when freedom clears its throat.
Silence should panic
when a tongue reborn
decides to speak.
So hear me now—
I am not here to be liked.
I am here to exist loudly.
To occupy space
without asking for permission slips
from people who measure worth
by how well we shrink.
I am the story you never finished reading,
but I am still writing myself,
still rewriting my borders,
still adding chapters
with spines made of refusal
and paragraphs made of rebirth.
You can underline me
or misunderstand me—
I will still rise
like a sentence that refuses
to end with a period.
I will expand.
I will stretch.
I will break open.
I will spill past the margins
and flood the whole page.
Because my voice is not an apology.
It is an arrival.
And I am not the story you abandoned.
I am the story that returned—
uninvited, unstoppable, unsoftened,
and I dare you
to read me now.
About the writer
Evans Sande Ndahura is a Ugandan writer, political commentator, and social critic whose work blends poetry, activism, and unapologetic truth-telling. Known for his bold voice and incisive reflections on society, governance, culture, and human identity, Ndahura writes with the intensity of someone determined to challenge silence and spark dialogue. His work often explores power, freedom, and the lived realities of ordinary people navigating complex social landscapes.