"
Where are we supposed to be from
when to know one's self is to see one's self reflected in someone else's eyes?
Where are we supposed to be from
when Africa is a country, defined by
the lack of everything we want and nothing we cherish?
Where are we supposed to be from
when immigrant, foreign national, alien,
illegal and expat are different shades of the same human hue?
Where are we supposed to be from
when dictators are exalted - the revolution, comrade! -
and ordinary stories stay footnotes of history?
Where are we supposed to be from
when there are no birth certificates certifying
our right to live in this land?
Where are we supposed to be from
when 'our own people' don't even know where
we are from?
*Author has chosen to remain anonymous for the following powerful reason: There is no sense attributing this poem to a name when there are thousands - hundreds of thousands even - of names of migrants that we will never know.
