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Muva Get Up, 2018 | Poetry

I am me, I am you, I am free

Bitch who told you that lie?

 

Scorned, sublime and anything else that does not let you have peace?

Baby what is the measure that allows you to exist?

Theirs or yours? 

Who can tell?  

And who will ever really know?

I am melody sublime and yet I walk through passage to other side while stares brave my melanin, while whispers brush past ear drums and while hisses and smirks are caught by corners of eye.

 

A being that wants respect, but will scream too loud only to be told not to, and fight too much only to be told to back down.

I am being, I am woman, I am all that any other can do, I am an individual.

Help me find resting place, in spirit, the world and otherwise.

 

At times I see you, through actual contact I meet you, name you cannot fully pronounce, it is not charm, it is stupidity, and when you laugh at its’ foreignness in your own opinion, I am offended.

And when you ignore or pass me by only to notice your more likened unrelated kin, I am offended.

 

Honey do you not see me? 

What placard do I have to carry, with what words must I write on them to engulf your attention so?

With what tears must I cry to let you see me! 

 

See me! 

See me! 

See me! 

I want your respect for simply breathing.

 

You see the other day my sister told me, my unrelated kin told me what an unrelated kin told her, ‘‘as we are in a land that isn’t ours, we have to work twice as hard.'' 

The unrelated kins were right because that is the ammunition and motivation I often times use and kick self in backside to grind and move, and grind and move, and grind and move and do it all over again.

No stunting, not flexing, no showing off, we simply make it bigger, better, grander, more colourful, more extravagant, more out with a bang, because why not?

Dare to be different they say, so dare to win I say.

 

I say Dare to MUTHAFUCKING WIN!!

Baby move because you can, not because you have to, because there is no rule book in life that says you have to win, you win because you want to change the status quo, you win because you want to have more and do more and be more, and want to have a bigger legacy than what you started it out with.

You win because you do not allow those who put you in tight corner, and small corner, and no corner laugh in despair, and reappear in your dreams, thoughts and sensations as their teeth laugh at you like jackal.

You will never be there so why not win.

 

Do not be afraid.

© 2024 Tomilola Olumide, All Rights Reserved
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