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.