A New Voice

Fresh poems capturing Uganda's vibrant youth spirit.

Roots & Rhythm

This project weaves traditional Ugandan stories with modern rhythms, reflecting Precious Birungi's deep connection to her heritage and contemporary life.

Endless lies

​The ones we call friends
Abandoned us when we needed them most.
They lost time for sharing problems,
Helping us find solutions.
Their replies became rude,
Our hearts broke with each.

The ones we call friends
Refused to spare even a second
But gave their hours to others
They listened to others plights
And left us in a web of misery
Left with no one to turn to

The ones we call friends
The ones we hoped would stay
Left in a jiffy, like a shooting star
Oh, how the Holy Bible was right:
“Foolish is he who trusts a human”
Now our hearts shed tears
But our eyes hold them in

The ones we call friends
The ones who were close to our heart
Broke us without hesitation
​@Birungi Precious

My pride, my downfall

Living here was my quiet anthem.
My pride was a house built on steady ground,
a country where I believed the harvest would never end,
where "lack" was a word that belonged to someone else’s history.
I remember the fever of it—
the anxious, electric itch to see the midnight sky
crack wide open.
We used to pray for the darkness to break,
waiting for the fireworks to bloom like neon flowers,
and we ran—God, how we ran—into the streets,
necks craned back, eyes drinking in the spectacular.
We were chasing the light then.

​But now?
Now, the light is a predator.
​Living here has become my slow-burning regret.
My country is a skeleton, a ribcage of ruins,
and I am starving for the very things I once thought were small.
Now, I am paralyzed when the horizon glows.My pulse stutters because I know—
it isn’t a celebrationIt is the whistle of a missile.
It is the heavy, hollow thud of a bomb.

The people are still running into the streets,
but their hands aren't reaching for the sky—they are shielding their heads.
They aren't creating memories; they are trying to outrun them.
This is the only pulse I recognize now.

​Living here is a memory that tastes like copper.
My pride has curdled into a beautiful disgrace.
I am lying on the pavement now,
tracing the cracks in the soil I swore I would always
love.
I am bathed in a red that does not belong to me—
the warm, stolen blood of my people.

And the irony is a blade in my side,
because the calendar says it’s New Year’s again.
​But there are no fireworks.
Only the sky, screaming.
Only the missiles, streaking toward the ghosts
of what I once dared to call a home.

​I find myself laughing—a jagged, wet sound—
because as I draw this final, shivering breath,
I am haunted by the silence I kept.
I regret the "safety" of my four walls.
I regret watching the rioters bleed from my window,
convincing myself their screams were "none of my business."

I should have been out there.
I should have been a riot.
I should have pleaded for mercy until my lungs turned to ash.
​But I stayed inside.
I stayed quiet.
Now my silence Cost me my life.
And the light has found me anyway.
​Happy New Year.