"Nigeria"
Location
Two fists raised towards a multitude of poverty
Blood pours from a soldier and his son
Holding the horn of Africa in their hands
As guerrilla-warfare beats a rhythm on naked skin
Atmospheric seasons of child-trafficking, crooked democratic elections, and religious killings
We’re glocked up
Where the graves of our grandfathers are trampled upon in haste to shed the blood of the innocent
Shuffling our feet against another civil war
Combinations of orphanages like body shots
Round after round
Town after town
We fell like Heaven’s tear drops
But we are entrepreneurs of perseverance who owe you
You left us a continent,
Where the light is too little for our sons to read
Where our daughters grow up without hearing an “I love you”
Where our genetics were outsourced for sugar cane and cotton.
And we still owe you,
Not for aid packages that come wrapped in a bloody history of colonization
Not for the black market guns that robbed children of fathers and nations of resources
Not for the vaccinations that never seem to come.
No.
We owe you for the blank page of our future
Let us expand ourselves
Declare war on the violence
Place an expiration date on crooked economics
Recycle the lost hope of our fathers
Ring freedom like a cracked bell
Rock our enemies to the four corners of their forfeit as they stumble around the horn of Africa
Stunned by our strength
Shaking for their salvation
Naked and exposed in the river of our youth where our brothers used to wrestle
Crouched and corned
Eyes set aflame
Game on
From no clothes and dirt roads to private practices and lab coats,
From a 1960 Liberation from the British
Before Obama said we could
We did,
From families of lion-like animals who place their crowns down in a village sun
Born to be kings
Smitten and slain
Rising again,
From a fountain.
Of eastern knowledge the west will never know.
For the blessings of these sacred souls
Let us expand ourselves
Celebrate our punching bags
Honor our jump ropes
Parade around in our boxing gloves
For these are all we have and all we need
Fists like yours.
Holding the horn of Africa in your hands
Battered and beaten
Rising like an West African Sun
TO FIGHT TO FIGHT TO FIGHT TO FIGHT
Until we fall.
And land in the sky.
Two fists raised toward a multitude of prosperity