I’m not born free

 

I was born in the uprising

When good days ceased rising,

In the rising cries and fears

Of faces ran by black tears,

I was born in the battlefield

Upon bullet strewn field,

And became a child of the resistance

Always in war, always in defence.

 

I’m the child of protest

An activist without rest,

Always dissatisfied

Always disgruntled,

The pain is still raw

I fight an invincible war,

Wrongs that needs be made right

In black and white.

 

I was born marching

Singing and chanting,

They say I’m in the wrong

When singing my freedom song,

I was born marching

Against governments

Against oppression

Against injustice.

 

I was born fighting

Wriggling and wrestling

Like a worm upon the ground

Hands and legs bound,

Fighting hunger

Fighting unemployment

And cater deployment.

 

I’m not born free

I’m the child of the struggle,

Unblinking eyes in the jungle

My life is a struggle,

Too heavy

To put bread on the table,

My life is reduced to rubble

And I’m begging…

I’m begging to be myself.

 

Amidst this fire

I grew up by the smoke of the tire,

I’m taller now..

After being irrigated

By the blood of my brothers,

The revolt is not against my nation

But against my other self

As I’m striving for liberation.

 

A lone dream

Hovers in the smoke,

A country I never had

There it lies…

Lies in the smoke of the tires,

In the hissing shout of tear gas

And rubber bullets;

It lies there, in the revolution

Constantly at birth,

The rainbow is in the fire.

 

Antreka Tladi

©️Apr2022

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