Efe Paul Azino
Yesterday we ran
Yesterday we ran
Yesterday we ran
Thoughts flew about like shrapnel
Tables overturning, shattering flower vases screaming
Our determination to remain in this land
7,000 miles away from the desperation that drove us here
The desperation that stalks us still, in this, illusion
Yesterday we ran
As they kicked down the door screaming:
"Black motherfuckers,
Scumbag African monkeys, today you return to your jungle"
We ran
I bolted through the backdoor, flung myself down the flight stairs
And leaped under the stars
My feet etching my resolve into the concrete:
'I am not going back to Africa!'
Not today.
Not until I bag a foreign passport that bears my name,
Knit my soul to a wrinkled skin if I have to.
You won't catch me today
You won't crack my skull against your prison bars,
You won’t empty my blood on the pavement
Like you did them students,
My journey does not end in your detention camp
You won't catch me today.
Yesterday we ran
I dashed past the flower shop, the devil on my heels
Into the jewellery store, hell in my lungs
And there she stood, a frail brown-skinned woman
Frightened, puzzled, knowing.
As my mind scrambled to unravel the mystery
her eyes held, empathy or trouble? She screamed
"Here! He's in here, the African is in here!"
I ran;
Crashed into her show glass and ruptured my tendon
When will the running stop?
I had no time to weigh living on the run
Against the knowledge that I do have a home
Where my legality isn’t in question
But I ran from it, ran into this place that demands I keep running
Running, down a black alley, into the sewer.
They won't find me here.
36 hours later, at peace with the surrounding darkness,
I listen to the rats and my protesting stomach,
Drinking in the stench around me
Yesterday we ran
And Chuma jumped through the window
Four-storey down
What do I tell his wife back home?