Dear Mother Africa

I apologize for our forgetfulness of where we come from;
our disrespectfulness of what you once stood for.
Because now all I see when I open my project door
is faded sunlight casting shadows on sinking concrete sidewalks
and chalked outlines of unfinished existences
cocaine kings
and heroin princesses on their daily stroll
trying not to trip over their dilapidated souls dragging behind them
intertwined with their collapsed veins
and their days begin to blend into weeks
and their weeks into months
and their months into years
until they no longer hear their own cry
because they've long since realized God has forgotten about them
Or really they've forgotten about him.

Because now they worship the pimps that promise them a better life each time they spread their thighs and contaminate the purity inside.
Open wide for twenty dollars;
swallow the polluted seed of a stranger.
Too numb to feel the anger
too cold to care about the danger of becoming a statistic.

Too busy chasing false ambitions
molested viciously by the hollow promises of the street.
Dear Mother Africa we need to be free from a land that we now see as a tomb for the resurrection of slavery.

We are shackled by our own deception and we need your protection.
If your people that are called by your name understood our powerful connection,
we would never question our freedom's quest.

And these words would be womanifestated in the chest of each brotha that could not breathe
and each sister that could not see
the beauty of our ancestry.

©2012 S.H