Grades 11–12
PoetryWritingTARIQ, he/him, 19, biggest hope for the future is that people speak up when they feel something wrong has been done. He believes that nobody is perfect. He wants to be remembered as someone who is imperfect. He is proud of his West Indian ties because they are directly connected to Africa in terms of culture. He is proud to be Black and everything that comes with it, even the hard stuff.
Who cries for Africa?
Who decides the truth is important more if the pastor doesn’t?
And now they say rapture’s coming.
Already happened. After the times
we called our masters nothing.
Africa’s crying if we personify,
the worldly hunting.
Raping and pillaging, hate for civilians,
stakes for the stocks, killing them.
drilling natural resources,
a source for my inner villains.
They claimed Africa’s savage,
ravaged pastures,
packed and mapped them,
like damn. Where’s Judge Mathis?
Maimed masses or taxes,
sore backs from the lashings.
Molasses, colored the soil.
We toil our pain
backwards and forwards,
backwards and forwards,
trafficking bodies.
But we locked up,
for trafficking quarters.
All the hope. Still rowdy.
Karma in place,
so I ain’t gotta trip on nobody.
Back to the task order,
pass me the mortar,
crushing all the brash disorders.
GIVEN TO CHILDREN IN THE SYSTEM,
all my people imported
to different parts of the planet.
Exported, not courted.
Now we on the court with the torches.
Shooting a shot back, for the courses,
teaching us a lesson, a testament,
to the strength.
A will that cannot be broken.
A spirit, in touch and focused.
So, who cries for Africa?
The query never been bogus.
***
This piece was originally published in 826 Boston’s How We May Appear.
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