NADJA ADORA NABBIE
Dear Comrade
Dear Comrade,
I am afraid
the sovereignty of our imaginations
has already been captured
lost to silver screens and static
betrayed by our own inferior complexes
and too, I suppose, as you said,
the need for survival.
We traded our freedom for the familiar
unfamiliar
hand that reached out to grab us
seeing our own as crippled
incapable of building empires
that could hold us
we ran back to that which had been taught to us, as perfection
its gesture must have been one of affection
and our deformed hearts
which had been longing since for this touch beyond the reaches of our skin —
now fulfilled —
turned against itself because
we dwelled in the seething rage of our island homes
wishing to scrub our children clean of themselves
conspiring to un-make our art and re-fashion it
into their likeness and image.
Let us admit, we would if we could
set cane fire to our histories
silence our libraries
rupture our economies and
ruin our people on command
if it pleased the engineering to do so.
We have always desired the other
seen ourselves as other
wish to be anything other
than ourselves:
We, these Caliban creatures,
abandoned on islands
trudging with our galvanized and wooden materials
that could club these Prosperos to the ground
building them instead pulpits
so they could Lord above us
as our Gods
offer us their words to pray:
God bless us all in these Americas
And hope because of proximity, that meant us too
but it’s not our fault
we fell for flashing things
money and mirrors
stars and stripes
waving above us
from atop the waters —
who wouldn’t love what they were told to watch
even if it watched back
to plot against us
so we can forgive ourselves
for this seduction.
Just know that it happened
a long time ago
but it never seemed so
because we were here
and they were there
and the separation by sea led us to believe
the great lie we told ourselves:
That we too, were the land of the free –
but now that they are here,
now that they have come to our doorsteps
with their warships and weapons,
what difference does it make?
Come now
let us not fret,
their being here is merely a formality.
They have come to collect their belongings.
Signed
your comrade in skin and beloved enemy
BEHIND GLASSED WALLS
For once, I want to know myself as you —
tall, glassed tower
watchful and weightless.
Sitting on an insulated throne of superiority
commanding my calculating army, “Lay siege.”
Your vulnerable city captured in a rabid cage of paranoia
helpless — with shattered pieces pulsing
in the deafening squeal
of my microphone’s feedback spitting
nothing but silence –
while I parade myself in your costume of chaos,
sip from the glass of imbalance
finally tipped towards me,
indulge in victory’s liquid courage tantalizing
my tongue turned wild
lapping the pleasure of your screams,
“Help – please help –”
but I never listen.
My eyes remain skyward
enjoying the scratches you pitifully attempt at my surfaces –
smooth and spotless,
polished to protect my indifference to your pain.
Offering me only an ethereal view of the valley of your despair.
The sun blinds me to anything that isn’t worthy of my attention.
Except, when the light falls
my walls turn to mirror
and the feral reflection of complicity reveals
a sick truth –
That if I want to know myself as you
then I must choose to become warped, misshapen and indistinguishable.
Why would I want this?
Still I close my eyes –
and trembling
become your glass.
