Home

A Poem by Keith Mundangepfupfu

To the African Abroad:

The Home you left is gone

The Home you used to know exists only in the crevices of your mind

This is hard because when the walls start closing in and you feel lonely

You miss Home

You want Home

You want laughter on Saturday afternoons, ripe mangoes and over ripe avocados, hot Sadza and intrusive aunts

You want joy that won’t announce itself upon arrival because it never left you

You want to belong,

And never have to question it because of the way you look or sound or the color of your passport

To the African Abroad:

Home is not love, joy, warm meals and sunshine

Home is broken and whole

Home is angry parents with shelved dreams, tired backs ridden with sacrifice

Home is figuring shit out

Home is not your escape

Home is not your nostalgia

Home is not waiting for you

To the African Diaspora:

Home is not Ankara, Kente, beads and a Dashiki

Home is more, and tired of being your accessory

Home does not need your half ass solutions to problems you think home has

Home can handle its own

You can help, you can learn but let Home show you first

Home will welcome you if you remember that you are the guest

To the African Diaspora:

Home continued to bleed and suffer after you left

Home is rebuilding

Home has grown and it’s been messy

Home is writing new history

Home wants you to know who and what home is

Home will not be your sloppy seconds

Home wants full time commitment

When you go Home

Go with humility and respect

And Home will welcome you because

Home never stopped loving you.

“Writing to me is what shapes and expands our imaginative consciousness, and this is critical in transforming the impossible to the possible.”

Keith Tinotenda S Mundangepfupfu is from Zimbabwe and currently studies at Wesleyan University. He started ALA in 2013 and can be reached by email at Ktmunda@gmail.com.