the syntax of colonials
the blackened connotation
of creoles
the substrate of the enslaved
lives
with the lexicon killed
The bastard children of conquerors
growing gardens
the blood that’s spilled
no child looks like his skin
that’s the price of the thrill
when your descendants are bought
Your whiteness is billed
bantu means people in
mother’s tongue
bantu also means
how fast we learned to run
bantu also means the adrenaline
of being traded for guns
it means not knowing where you’re from
Zenu is the name of a river
In my great-grandmother’s tongue
Zenu also means where you’re from doesn’t exist, it’s gone
And that happened when the river, like the people, turned the water into rum
The ease the pain knowing exactly where you’re from
Persona means people, in my mother tongue
the violence of linguistics
Persona means reminder, that I am not just the victim of colonialism but the children of it
But carry the victims face
and the victors name
But humanity isn’t gifted when you’re birthed from the slave
Forever tethered, the bastard grandchild of conquerers
turned people
the legacy of wraiths,
The pride of resistance, ripped from the seed on foreign soil
Created by rage, and curse of Cain
And the renamed people turned slaves
and people of the land who sold their souls
To access their own grain
And the ones who stayed
There is no me, if Colombus never arrived in that coast of kiskey-a
Forever tethered but not by
Like the yellow blue and red that bleeds in the sea my ancestors lied
Bastard children of conquerors
My lexicon of liberation tethered to the colonial hymths
Tongue that i speak, with the air I breathe is
who I am, my state of being
is the synths I sing
I am Patois, Papiamento, Kreyol ayisyen, Lingua Geral, Kriol, Kriolu, Tok Pisin, Pijin
Soy lengua Palenquera
I bo?
