Friday, December 10, 2010

Aawo Part 1


We dont like to remember Aawo
she was around before we existed,
we dont care to rememberher voice before it got raspy with the chokeholds of her inner demonsbefore her remaining right hand became leathered with her own historyeven then,
when we were in her presence,
we were taught to contradict her in her own old waynot to be comfortable looking into her deep hooded eyes,
irises blue around the fading edgeslooking like someone had beaten her down to that shade of sad colourknowing it was fully brown beforeonly disdain now,
what happened to make her look at us that way?
insight has been blindsided,
we don’t like to look her way
as cowards, creep around and look through her broken windows
lights shattered to the ground,
dark and endlessher home was full of the pain, the lies and the men who tricked herall of it haunting her,
her mind is not really hers anymoreshe wont clean her head out, all of it killingAawo was on her way into limbosome of us tried to help her, stir her ageing body in a different directionwhen we saw stifled emotions go across her face,
she never released any of itthe pent up pain was still there, wiltingin the crevices, wrinkles and scars, a beautiful canvas destroyed willinglyshe opens her mouth to laugh at the irony of her life,
a gaping black hole dry of poetry, love and life,
what happened to make her laugh by herself that way?
we dont like to eat the food she makes from her own cropsoverripe and rotting, visibly sickeningwe as the workers have become plump with apathy, foreign aid and crimewe dont know how to pluck the fruits of her labour and
our conscious  not by our side any more,
left behind with unnatural shadows under the Acacia treesnothing really matters to her people anymore,
they are being paid to forget the promises made to Aawo and
to guard the viruses foreigners plan for usthe only road before her hold nothing she recognises,
what happened to us to desert her that way?

Suaad Jama
Copyright © 2010

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