by Christian Emecheta

Before the boots came, they stood in parks at dawn,
arms raised like branches on a quiet lawn,
a million plus bodies learning to be still,
learning truth, compassion, patience — but the state’s dark will
feared everything, feared those who meant no ill.

July came. The orders struck like sharpened swords.
They came for the woman training in the square,
the professor lost among his quiet words,
the gentle priest who taught his neighbors there.
They came with vans, trucks, and minds like stone,
a dreadful execution of power on its throne,
threatened by the peaceful standing on their own.

What followed has no gentle name.
Cells designed to break the body’s frame.
Shocks applied until the screaming stopped
or twisted till resistance finally dropped.
Sign this paper. Renounce what makes you evil.
And those who would not sign faced dark upheaval —
kidneys, corneas, hearts cut from the living,
taken without mercy or forgiving,
sold to buyers who were told not to ask
where the organs came from, behind the mask,
whose chest was cut upon an office table
in a room the world dismisses as a fable.

This is not history. It still happens now.
The camps still run. The prisons are still filled.
And we who live untouched must ask ourselves how
we speak of freedom while our conscience is stilled.
What does our freedom mean if we stay mute?
A right ungiven bears a bitter fruit —
a fire that in time will burn us all.

Speak, then. Not because the world will listen, but because our silence is creating more walls when our voices can be creating cracks. Say their names. Say Falun Gong. Say what is wrong. Say it in your parliaments and radio stations, say it in your living rooms and prayer houses. The smallest voice can also leave marks. The gentlest truth will outlast the loudest lie.

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Recognized as 4th Place in FoFG’s 2026 Poetry Contest