Cheeks flushed,
Heart rushed,
Words pushed
Down our necks

Force fed garbage
We don't want to hear
*******- flowing through our veins
Like mud
Chewing on bitter cud
But we need it,
We need to learn it -
Memorise the words
So white men can put us in
Boxes.
Tick
or
Cross.

I look up to your face,
Oblivious, you gaze down,
Every cell a brilliant shade of blue,
Eyes reflecting a greenish hue;

You don't realise were you are,
Fields of colour you ignore,
African sunsets I know you would adore,
People, places you never even glance at,
Too engrossed in adverts- adverse to books and that;

This haven you think you've created,
It's really a jungle- endless and endless,
Constantly chopping down trees,
Searching for a way out,
But forgetting to open your eyes:

Loosing yourself in an electronic jungle,
loosing yourself in your phone,
loosing yourself in your selfie- self harm; self loath; self hate;

Look up,
Get up,
Move,
Mabey you wont feel quite so...
                                                           ­ 
                                                                ­              L
                            
                                    O
                          ­                                                                 ­               
                                                 ­                                                                S

       T

Tyre marks,
The only proof she ever existed,
One black lock of hair,
A tooth on the hotel bathroom floor,
Tiny blood splatters on the mirror,
Finger print smudges on the motorway diner glass,
Boot prints on the child’s drive way,
An open window,
An empty pink coat hanger.

Crouching on the mud dirt ground,
Is a child,
sweat, blood, tears,
Smudging its face,
Sunken eyes,
Sinking deeper into its face,
Of misery,
Of loss,
Of a crippled reality,
So harsh- unjust,
Its skin is paper thin,
Eyes like a nights sky,
But missing the stars,

Its 7,
Still pure,
Still innocent,
Unlike the world,
Who turned against it,
Before it even took its first breath,
It was this world that killed its parent's,
Siblings, Uncles and Aunts,
Killed its soul,
Cut out the love,
Pushed forward the pain,
This world seems to think its funny- a game,
But it's not,
It's not,
It's a boy,
And nobody ever learned his name.

It is this day,
                                 today,
                       that we lose. We lose the skies
                  and everything goes.
                     We go to the clouds. Nothing
                                       matters there.
            We are like the man laying in the ditch
                      ***** in his hands. Cold, wrinkled
                                              fingers.
 ­  The woman, arms wrapped,
                                        tightly,
       ­                              around the toilet bowl
                                           Now limp
                        in her grave.
                                                         We, collectively, lie
    looking to the skies. That's where we'll be...
                                                           ­               soon.
                                            ­                   The air,
                                                       full of smog
                                                            ­           will
                                                            ­                  clear.
                                        ­              That is not a hope
                                                            ­                      it's a
                                                                ­              Promise.