Poetry

"Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi," An Akan proverb that says, “It is not wrong to go back and retrieve what has been forgotten” It is a journey into the past, into lives once lived, today forgotten Histories once rich, their moral fabric, now tattered, dispersed across time It is the summer of 2025. Children splashing in the murky pool waters Bodies glisten in the sun, hourglass women and sculpted men, Sculpted by whom? God? Dumbbell? Scalpel? These days, it’s hard to tel

How dare you judge me when you do not know the full story How dare you take one glance and think you know it all? Beneath the calming ripples are silent battles The silent battles that cause me to act in ways I never thought I would I look in the mirror and I see a reflection that I can hardly recognize A constant reminder of the raging waves that have molded me into this unrecognizable shadow of who I once was So thank you, thank you for the incessant reminder of who I’ve be

Today I cried, not from sadness, not from joy, not even from emptiness. It wasn’t the unpaid bills or the pressing deadlines. It wasn’t the echo of my father’s absence, that grief has learned to sit quietly within. It wasn’t old wounds or past betrayals; those have long been forgiven. It wasn’t even the racial slurs hurled at me by the frail old woman hunched over her cane. The tears came from somewhere deeper, a travail too deep for words. Today I cried. They were the tears