On occasion, I dream about drowning at least once a week And when I drown I always expect to choke under the pressure of the ocean That the salt stings my eyes shut But I am always surprised at how easily my body sinks And how buoyant it can be under water And it makes me think of all the slaves Who threw themselves overboard How they thought themselves fish before slave Did they grow gills? Were they grateful for the mercy of erosion Under salt instead of whips Did they backs bend like dolphins do? Did they build an underwater city untouched By brutal hands Do they know, that I see them sometimes The ancestors who chose water over land And they are not bone and marrow stacked At the bottom of the ocean They are not corpses who chose the easy way out I see them They have built an underwater world from their bare hands They laugh and bubbles exit out their mouths Even now my family would not mourn my departure If I were to be called by the waves For the water has a language that some Of us have an ear for It is not the place of mortals to tear up When one of us africans drown Because to sink is to find new life Is to be in the hands of those who control their own destiny I know them, the water people They call me during the night And i don't fight anymore I laugh with them, and live And wake angry that oxygen can suffocate me That I suddenly become flailing fish That my home is not this land That I find comfort in ocean floor That is where my ancestors speak to me Console me Teach me the ways of spiritual healer At the bottom of the sea And it is not a dream although I wake from it It is a reality that is bestowed upon The xhosa shamans from birth The western world does not have a reality like that So they will argue it does not exist They will be quick to diagnose my mental health Call the act of reuniting with my own An episode, a stress indicator A sleeping pill prescription These are the same people who believe in Three day resurrection for death But cannot fathom an african never dying And we donβt die We do not die. There is life for us elsewhere. And when we are ready The waves will welcome us home.