My dreams have been scattered, like petals on the ground... walk carefully please, so as not to crush them very badly...
* It seems that another person who wrote things wrote something very similar to this, many moons ago. Here it is:
- "I have spread my dreams under your feet;
- Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams."
I am tripped out over this, and a little impressed as well. There really is nothing new under the sun...
Mr Misunderstood.
ReplyDeleteNigeria, the home I once knew as a child,
War held its deathly grip on the people in those early years,
yet I sheltered in the care of the extended mission ‘family,
swimming in a pool of over 31 nationalities at school.
I did not know the hunger that so many did,
Though I saw it on the streets and did my best to help,
Caught between cultures mixing with many,
But not owning any as my own.
Misunderstood.
I look out from this frost glazed window,
out on the busy streets and houses below.
On a world that is not my own, but rather given,
Like an unwanted Christmas present it sits,
And stares back at me…
I have spent the last 14 years in West Africa,
Among peoples with big hearts and smiles,
Ventured across the savannah of the plateau,
Where fence and wall do not hold back,
the freedom of this child.
Here, in this strange country,
I mourn for friends I will never see again.
For the familiar and the unexpected,
For my family still out in Africa.
No-one wipes my tears.
Misunderstood am I, with strange accent,
with leather school bag and strange stories.
I am the ‘white nigger’ so the children say.
Still, teachers ponder over which class to put me in,
and my few new friends find me loyal.
On their return my family find me bitter inside,
I cannot talk to my parents of how I feel,
How could they understand? Aren't they to blame?
I pack my wooden box of string, scissors and memories,
and tell my mother goodbye.
She says "Finish school before you go, so you can work.",
and so I stay...
Alone... Until the years heal.
Until the scars fade,
and what once was strange is familiar,
and what was home is just a memory.
Yet my heart still beats for Africa,
and those carefree days of innocence.