If My Heart

If my heart could grow You could have seen its seed Augmenting Pushing through the light Ready to produce fruits.   If my heart could talk You could have felt the unfelt; The love, the fear, the insecurities, the hope, the anguish, the frustrations.   If my heart could show You could have seen the…

A Nation in Labour

The Republic is in labour Screaming pacing the political ward cursing the colonial midwife for telling her to push. Her head is spinning vision blurred mind inside out. She drinks a cup of counterfeit morality and blubbers a prayer of hope for the stillborn baby. The Republic is a headless chicken with a body that…

Painfully Healing

It is so painful to heal! For some reason it always seemed like healing was all about covering the parts inside you that laid naked. I thought internal healing resembled how you would naturally let new skin grow in places that were once wounded. You know the open holes that don’t really hurt anymore but…

Child Not Bride

Under the silvery stare of the moon The children sat to listen to soul refreshing tales Beneath the starry blue skies, we laughed and galloped our ignorance of the world away It was in the nakedness of the breeze that I learned to smile my soul away And I enjoyed it A perfect peace But…

Since you attended my funeral, I’ll also attend yours

Since you attended my funeral, I’ll also attend yours I’ll arrive just before the coffin Enters the church And join the line of weepers. Weepers, mind you, not mourners. Weeping is the physical evidence for facebook That people actually cared about you. But mourning… Mourning is the spiritual evidence That people actually cared about you….

Nusayba Alareer

You were a witness to a heinous atrocity of war, a crime against humanity Wildflowers in open spaces Wildflowers in closed spaces, in spaces that have been tampered with You lost a husband, your children lost a father, the world lost a poet I sit in my room and write this poem I, too, am…

Hungry

I am hungry for a love my country cannot afford. I want a love that will buffer my mistakes even before I commit them A love that has mapped out the possibilities of my existence and made room for each one of them A love that doesn’t need me to clamour to identify as black…

I Love Home

For those people who find laughter Such company Laugh like they are falling apart Or coming loose With tears gliding down their cheeks And these days all this on A mobile phone. For laughter that soars Echoing in every nook For laughter sprayed On blossoming bushes For laughter that escapes out of caves Rising to…

River Styx

The Nile is a moving graveyard The ground is soaked up with blood The Nile has more skin than most The Nile? You mean river Styx, and what a price you have paid to cross it. The ground is shaking with grieve, The city is crying tears of blood, The streets are loud but quiet,…

You Must Know

You must know As little girls, we write about the struggles of our mums We glorify their pain as borne out of resilience in duties never understood The choring, the caring, the back-from-work, good enough to keep her a mother As little boys, we wonder what could be wrong with the masculinity of our dads…