The Walls Are Snitching
the same black ink I used to wade in / has congealed like tar about us
Spiritual asphyxiation
keloid on the heart
signs of stroke on the left side of your soul
lumbar spine jutting through skin
you are struggling to stay upright
Doesn’t help when a helicopter
low flying, swings around the corner
and hovers over masjid Ayesha
rotors chopping your prayer into fragments
and collecting it
into plastic ziplocked
bags
Padlock on the tongue -
the same black ink I used to wade in
has congealed like tar about us
white birds comply and shed from the sky
their feathers
weight that sticks
and ink that trails
to unwrite childhood
the same black that fills
raging irises
that anchor vinegar smiles
on the Piccadilly line
Truth is always greater
than the moments
we ransom for it for-
increasingly those moments
appear more delicious-
fat free lies
and moderate uniforms
fit better at the waist-
hot rocks-
are better left
on the ground.
Scraped out of ourselves
and banished to two silos
the ones that conform
and the ones that don’t
The pungent smell of paranoia
the pigeon’s red eye
pulsating
and the winged green one of that pretty hijabi
who may be an opp
When our currency is dismay
and Saharan satellites twitch
to report your holiday
back to your state
Ask:
Who makes knowledge here?
And why haven’t we scolded him?
Ask:
When the dustman collected debris that September
did our humanity go with it?
Ask:
How do we harness Solomon’s kingdom
and speak resistance
into acquiescent walls?
Soukeyna Osei-Bonsu is an Amazigh/ Ashanti writer who is passionate about her Black Muslim identity. Soukeyna’s work features themes of the centrality of Africa, diasporic identity as well as Islamic spirituality and healing. Soukeyna has been writing intermittently over the last six years and is collecting her writing into an upcoming book. Soukeynaoseibonsu.com
