Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Group poem 9: Somali Youth - "My Youth Experience"

O you, the youth

I have a different theme for you today

To read, reconsider, reproduce and relish

For I wish you to pay attention

It is about youth experience

For I remember the boyish face

The dirty legs ridding bicycle

Fighting in the sandy playground

With the foe neighborhood boys

Who I was told were ferocious

Carrying all kinds of illegal weapons

To preying other boys in the hood



For I was enlightened they wish to find

The weakness side of “us”

To victimize my friends and I

So did my friends initiated the assault

To humiliate the bad boys first

To see their lips lacerated

To laugh at teeth parts falling

Spitting blood mixed with muddy sand

O’ who remembers the “kala Reeb”

Where you were forced to fight for friends

Where you are left to defend yourself

From the king of the new neighborhood

Being tough was the game

For the wrongful assumptions of boyishness

Swearing, screaming, spitting, sniffing,

Not crying was rule number one!

Staying strong for immoral things

Was seen as encouragement

O’ daring to die was bravery

It was essence of boyish mentality

The essence of wrong peer pressure

Peer pressure can be wrong or right

It can be good or bad

It can be healthy or harmful



Depends on how you deal with

And discriminate your personal interests

From the dangerous at temptations

Of proving to be the toughest and the leader

Gaining wrong respect of heading the wrong path

For I was smart enough to know

And discriminate who was my best friend

Who was a bad influencer into my in life

And had to find ways to avoid

Before I run into terrible

My parents didn’t wish me to be in

Sometimes I was considered girlish



Because I had refused smoke

I denounced in participating criminal activities

Had I not rejected to do robbery many times

Had I not acted very selfish

To avoid getting into dirty fights

I encouraged my friends go to the libraries to read

I hated to hang out in the hood acting tough

For I knew that wouldn’t evince my cleverness

What makes me tough is contending with “THE MEN”

The Men who dominates me for centuries



O’ you, the young Somalis

Don’t set the gear of your dreams too low

I am now mature to discern

The world offers more than you may foretell

O’ should you not be overwhelmed by peer pressure?

And the cheap boyish mentality

That may put you in confinement

By getting caught in the compliance of criminal activities

In which you lose your citizenship

Or retain bad record in your history



To be a good citizen is to have a clean license

So avoid getting into fighting

Avoiding bad hanging out with bad boys

Avoid hooking up with fast girls

Focus your dreams

Listen to your hearts

Answer the right questions

Ignore the wrong answers

Who is your real role model?

What do you want to be?



Do you wish be a productive citizens or murder

Do you wish to help others or kill them?

Ignore temptations

Avoid depression

Distress is the essence of depression

Pushes you to do perilous performance

Doing all kinds of wrongs things to escape

The unknown or know hectic world

For I have yet to say enough

And wish you pay attention



Satisfactions is the essence of happiness

Be confident and satisfied

With whatever Almighty bestow you

Seek achieve what you desire in meaningful ways

Be respectful to your own parents

To your brothers and sisters

To your community and country

So peace and harmony shall prevail

So dreams shall reign and fulfilled

So the right morals shall guide all of us.

Faisal Abdi
Copyright © 2010

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