Before You Were You, I Was You

By Nyabuti Peter Semba

Before you were you, I was you.

The first to rise,

the one who never finished being a child.

I learned early that love can sound like duty—

that being called strong

is just another way of saying you’re on your own.

They clapped when I did well—

a sound too loud for the small,

quiet ache that lived inside my ribs.

No one asked if I was tired.

I carried the smaller ones—

their dreams, their hunger, their noise.

I kept the peace, even when it burned my tongue.

Silence tasted like ash,

but I swallowed it anyway.

They told me to be the example,

so I became a bridge—

steady, walked on, never resting.

They built their futures on my back

and called it love.

Sometimes, I still see that child I never got to be—

the one who drew suns on rough paper

but forgot what warmth felt like.

I folded joy into quiet corners,

prayed that it wouldn’t wrinkle.

Then came the whispers:

Remember where you came from,

as if success were a debt unpaid,

as if I owed my bones to the soil that shaped them.

That’s the , my child—

a love that keeps collecting,

even when your hands are empty.

But listen—

you don’t owe the world your exhaustion.

You can love your people

and still choose yourself.

You can carry the flame

without letting it consume you.

You can be the first

and still be free.

Before you were you, I was you.

And because I was,

you don’t have to be.

The fire that once burned me

can keep you warm.

Poet’s Note

This poem was born out of the quiet weight many firstborns carry — the invisible duty to hold everything together while pretending it’s light. In many African homes, and especially within black families, being the firstborn often means growing up before your time. You become both child and parent, both example and experiment. “Before You Were You, I Was You” is my confession to every child who never got to be one. It’s also a letter of release — from a parent who finally sees the pattern and wants it to end with love, not guilt. The poem speaks to the black tax, yes, but also to the deeper emotional inheritance of strength and silence. It reminds us that we can honor where we come from without letting it break us. Sometimes, the truest form of gratitude is rest.

If you’ve ever wandered through ambition, love, or loss, you’ll find a part of yourself in The Roads That Lead Me Home by Nyabuti Peter Semba.

It’s a reflective journey through the roads that shape a life — the bright, the broken, the tender — and the quiet realization that even our wrong turns have been leading us back to where we truly belong.