we,the children, got taken taken away from her
bloodstained hands, self-destructive palms, crooked fingers pointing
no direction, its easier to run away from her when her back is turned
she doesnt know her way around
the battlefields expand, freedom fighters positions get shifted,
rapidly increase their numbers, wallow in blood pools
revel in the death counts, linger around the blackrimmed hunger
no one knows where these enemy lines came from
who told you the war started now?
no, trouble came by a while ago, left parts of her being morbidly missing
ugly, rotting stumps where a foot, an ear and the left hand should be
we hear the names she had for what she lost in her lamentations
soar over us and whispered within slumblers of the night, tendrils of predictive horror
of how they “have destroyed our religion and made our children their children”*
we are most awake after we have lulled ourselves to sleep,
the subconscience is more aware, alive than we are
as we are conditioned to forget,
won’t recognise our own
when we see them again on biased maps clearly in the morning,
Ogaden, Dijoubti, North Eastern Province
amputated by men who were pale in morales,
crosses tight around their necks, no limit in their impious imperalism
they’re still taking children away from her
who told you life started after they came?
to this day, we flee to lands too far and too cold
for her ways, wisdom and weapons can hold us, we’re grasping foreign lies now
we live, listen, learn under solid cold white structures
inferior in race and differ in religion
Aawo’s majority have become minorites over here
discriminating authority, stolen heritage and heavy bounded stories
swell up and around her childrens’ heads,
we are taught to lower their voices
amplify the foreigners unworldy words
her children move too slow, tentative steps towards the wrong places
our paths divide all the time, not alligned with Aawos own fate
disrespect, distrust and disgust parts
gapes and wades between her children, we dont care about being on Aawos side
when no one stands by ours, too busy in awe and due respect of they have programmed us
to see, to hear, to speak of a glamourised civil war
another ghetto they created
of what the men with crosses now loosely around their necks
have scripted for you, whitewashed imagery constrasts with our reality
under the mock columns of history they rewrote
to capture our minds and dwell in castles of their control
who told you we’re free now?
*quote Mohamed Abdullah Hassan
Suaad Jama
Copyright © 2010
