#colourlines

Nas said the world is mine

i took it literally

scattered my mental across a white world and its periphery

waiting eagerly

like the backdrop was gonna dry

and mould me whole

the world is mine and yours

to draw parallels against constellations

that we name ourselves

i don't buy into the eurocentric hype of beauty

i buy into a space that i curate

a space that i carve out like howard carter's next door neighbour's sister

they label places they found

like lands didnt exist before those pale feet

jumped into the sea and walked onto coasts

  i didn't need to read a history

i lived it, my blood carried the chapters

my forehead bore the foreword

my feet were the epilogue

my hatred has pacified

its not about us and them

its about me and me and you and yours

this new way of seeing ourselves

has formed a cement 

we be bricks that dry in the sun, today

building foundations for tomorrow

just as the layers form a song

just as the heartaches form a story

just as the letters form out a word

let us live the dream, daily.

you know how it is when your friends think you're acting crazy

'you're racist' 

because you put a pound up and question everything

not looking for the difference

but seeing it seep into the broken hunched backs of old women

with tanned skin and squinty eyes

from working with bare feet and proud bellies 

with watering pots on their heads

with children about their frames

looking point blank into camera lenses

that are held in sweaty palms and tanned wrists

don't tell me about how India made you feel at home

home is where the heart is

stay away from picturing perfection in the eyes of an Indian girl

when Stacey is across the street

14 and pregnant pushing a pram into superdrug

for that two for one sale on maybelline

while she counts coupons and you book e-tickets

to fly across the world to 'find yourself'

carrying a judgement filled backpack

eager to find stories that would make tears drop onto pages

they sell it so we buy it

but i have melanin innit, so i am exempt.

but the scales be sitting at 180 - i too am guilty

while Stacey picks up a bag of weed

with the kids locked in the bathroom

she escapes a system that you push onto the people

so with your tan lines that mapped out our borders for us

again, with your tan lines that mapped out our borders for us

think twice

your sunblock is just that

the light in Stacey's eyes is dim

before you buy a ticket and set sail to somewhere sexier

where the children walk around bare foot with protruding bellies

sit the f down and think about Stacey:

she is the descendant of your empire.

we call our women Queens, our men Kings

we might have lost our way as we traveled through time zones

but if Stacey was Sandhma

if Stacey was Soweto

the story would be the same

your tear lines left jagged edges on maps

your fathers and sons poured blood onto thirsty ground

while we fought with the mantra of turn the other cheek

or by any means

i now feel its necessary

to find our way for ourselves

my love is your love

from Whitney to Bell Hooks to Arundhati Roy