Safekeeping

I am bound to misplace my beliefs one day. 

The brazen ethos of my people lies 

heavy on values filled with pride, penance, 

 and post-modern debacles, 

while I work night and day, 

consumed by the need to ascertain 

the collective memory of those forsaken. 

Baroque pasts of civilized men 

have marked our history with blood 

of boorish folks, so easily used and discarded; 

coaxed and vexed into seeking refuge 

in the footnotes of some foreign manuscripts 

that keep us tethered to an adamant fate, 

shaped centuries before our birth. 

Yet, here we are, still scraping in the darkness, 

waiting to make up for all those years spent 

in the shadows of self-loathing and ridicule. 

While all that we have learnt to express 

and everything that we have carried over,  

through the narratives of each generation 

that came before us, weigh us down. 

I am a part of this never-ending cycle, 

 responsible for preserving a past 

so addled with fear and pain. 

And regardless of my cautions and inhibitions, 

I will misplace my beliefs one day, 

like my father before, 

And place this burden on another; 

 for safekeeping.