Stamps and Scams

When my niece asks me about my hair, 

I tell her I don’t have curls in my hair,

They aren’t shiny and straight like yours,

They are a mess of frizz, memories, pain and suffering just societal chaos,

Memories of who decayed, the ones who left a part of them in me.

When she asks me why do I carry such a small bag,

I say I carry a bag with me that has two pills, 

One is for stress and the other is to avoid it,

I take them together– 

For my left to survive it and my right to fight it.

The right is filled with opinions of people,

The ones who never had to build their homes from scratch, 

For people who can easily comment for us to be thrown out,

Ripped apart communities; left suffering because we wanted opportunities,

Hopes in eyes being buried with votes in hands,

Murdered homes built with twigs of dreams and sweat.

She sits there in silence, with words that did not make sense to her,

A small girl who was drifted apart from her mother at five,

For the sole reason of a missing stamp the mother was exiled,

It’s not a stamp on a letter of love– 

Rather a booklet that world uses to keep us apart,

The gates of safety and development turning into the volcano of hell and erupement.

The inflation in grocery has made deflation in hearts;

Hospitality to hatred, diversity to deportment, 

All my eyes notice are the tears in the eyes of the homeless,

The colour of skin defining the respect, the colour passport defining the welcome we get,

All this little girl carries is hope and love not weighed in stamps and scams.