The empty space at the table and in my heart
Empty empty empty.
My heart sunk deep like the bottom of the ocean floor.
Spaces all around.
My mother, Alice Makarurinda, a Tutsi,
My father, Aloys Makarurinda, a Hutu.
What's the difference?
Father obliterated mother because she was Tutsi
Saw the machete approaching her neck,
We were a family.
As it made its first cut, hearing the "drip-drop" of her blood hit the concrete floor,
We are all people.
As I heard the boom of my mother collapse to the floor,
I stepped over the brutalized, bleeding corpse,
Giving her one last kiss.
I cried for days.

20 percent of Rwanda's population
Gone gone gone.
Justice is blind, and at times, deaf.
Now, they have memorials for the victims, known and unknown
But that doesn't bring my mother back.