“ANYI ME AYE A, NSEE ME DIN,” (BOORISHNESS)

Outcast.

i blame the fates that began my course,
a destiny shackled at first breath,
born of a fleeting touch on a shadowed night,
behind bars shiny in places where hands gripped,
my thoughts turn inward, carved into walls
and painted cement floors,

my veins beating a pulse beneath my skin
my trembling lips and chin,
i run before dusk can claim me,
before the weight of history pulls me
rustling through leaves, dirt, and drilled marks in rocks

the wind howls through hollowed mines,
through fields where warm hands bleed into dust and mine,
i stare down the hands, guttering cuts on a vertical climb,
i turn away unable to look anymore; i pinch my lips
and held a curse underneath my breath

at the edge of their mutterings, a fool’s errand,
that i did not belong,
yet the gold in their pockets, my bones,
the diamond in their crowns, my red life.
i stand in the corners and against the walls,
my eyes growing warm

i stand naked as a flame in a mottled skin,
my children, lost to a whirlwind,
my heart thudding dully in the chest
as i stared down my hands, ‘i don’t deserve this’

I gave the world its rhythm; drums that spoke before tongues,
bookshelves marching across Timbuktu to Alexandria,
your multi-lane streets, towers, and monuments
on our backs
you sip expensive glass cases of red life,
and your factories sit on my bones,
at last, you rewrite me, erase me, and scorn me,
as though you had not stolen my light,

Outcast.