Mufasa Poet

I am a son of a woman, a black woman,
black, because she is too coloured.

I am a son of a woman,
this woman I call mama, she is strong
and I am not talking muscles here but even if I was,
she is stronger than that gym instructor who made a girl pregnant and ran away

I am a son of Wangari Maathai, a son of the forest, a son of Africa
I have got paws for hands
I push away negativity with so much force I am a lion on toes
a lion today because yesterday my mother hid her tears and her fears
I told her about my bad days but she never told me about her sleepless nights

And I am a son of a pen, the nib on your preferred pens
I am words shaped up by your handwriting
I am known to education simply because my mother
chose to go into that boxing ring and face Mike Tyson
she was bitten on her ear so all my years I can never forget that
I am a son of a woman who fought for my education
Who starved, so I could be educated

And I am a son of a voice
A voice of Fatuma
a single mother living positively with HIV that she did not seek to have
when she chose to love a man who did his manly duties, alright
He went out and brought home food…and HIV
So she made him food to eat while he made her take ARV pills
after those meals!

So yes this is for a woman, alright
This is for that woman whose husband has never hit her
But don’t tell her she doesn’t know violence
because her husband actually pushed her aside by sleeping around with younger women
When her body was disfigured by giving birth to the four kids they have!

This is for that woman in Ahero, with muscles on her eyes,
Because she has managed to push back tears
so her children could not see her pain
because it hurt when her husband died,
it hurt when she was forced to be inherited by her late husband’s brother.

It hurt.

So I know of a woman who fights with nothing but her spirit
I know of a woman who in life,
has fought more battles than a few loud mouthed freedom fighters we know
I know of a man living on a 5th floor who will not see my point of view