الروح

 

He.

He.

Serpent with wings

Whose ‘purity’ contaminates my vision

I am blind and He

He is my sight.

He.

Coloniser

Does not sleepwalk through life

Does not lie on pillows of crushed velvet tears

These trees

A living witness

To the deafening silence

Of a culture eroded

A history maimed

Bodies unclaimed

He.

Oppressor

Still holds me close

Collapsing on my skin

Wrapped around my legs

Maligning my darkened body

Falling over my indigenous soul

His guilt carried on the arch of my back

His fingertips could almost taste me

He.

Is the crimson pool that bathes my ancestors

The injured tongue that imprisons my children

The pervasive eyes that cradle my mother

The superstitious mind that dethrones my legacy

He

Disavows, denies and disowns

This hollowed earth cannot hold his ego

Nor tame his tongue

Words cannot unteach his truth

His soliloquy is law

His privilege is might

He is blind

And now I,

I must be his sight.

Muna Abdi

© 2020

Sweating Blood

Gabay is like a blood vessel ready for rupture.
A thrombosis of emotions breaking its incarnation.
I feel as though I’m going vomit the troubles out.
Sweet the struggles away.
But as the sky bleeds and the Maghrib prayer is called.
The sorrow and doubts.
The vengeance and temptations.
Deeply seasoned on the roast meat.
I consume. I drink. I swallow. I absorb.
I sleep.
My vessels get tighter.
My brain gets heavy.
My eyes roles back.
My arm drops.
This is my stroke of unresolved metaphors.
Unbalanced alliterations.
Sentences without a beginning and an end.
Loss of equilibrium to my letters for the dead.
Thickness of undefined words, my coronary arteries are vas-constricted.
I skip a beat.
Anomie, it wears it well.
But I sweat, sweat blood. Gallons of rhythms and notes.
Is this the life of Abwaan or Gabayad.

Samantar Gurey
Copyright © 2020