Because the colonizers broke our world into
irreconcilable halves stretched further apart
by motion & something quite immovable,
we stand amidst the ruins, the rancid music
of fate poured into our elegant bodies &
these bodies become hosts, an intersection
of conflicting cultures.
Our languages were burnt out of our mouths
& the smoke snuffed out every memory of
our fathers, our native songs of water pulled
out of our throats & replaced with a flaming
tune.
I mean to say, that in my country, we dwell
in bodies not our own, we give our children
languages which do not know how to make
home of their tongues. But that is not the
real tragedy. What makes an ocean of my
eyes is the unsuspecting manner in which
we wear this monstrosity with a dangerous
swagger, how we have trained our tongues
to only sweeten at the taste of lands which
will never see us as anything more than
just another consequence of conquest.