07/02/2022
THE WEAPONS WE OWN – Tafadzwa Monalisa Musasa (19) Zimbabwe.
Our skins are the darkest and so our smiles are the brightest.
Our hearts still yearn for that brightness you see on our exterior,
But what of the darkness in our skulls that taints our hearts every iota?
See, we smile not because we have reasons to,
But we smile because it's our mandate to impress.
It's not that we do not have tears,
Neither is it that we don't have ears,
To hear the call of education near.
The mandate to impress at our own expense has been thrust in our face,
While the school gates have been shut in our face,
But our faces have developed a resistance,
Our voices, a persistence.
It's been a while since I've seen the authentic smiles
Because we are fed up and yet not fed.
We can't deny that hunger reeks in our land.
It's a battle we can't just fight with our hands.
We got to have explosive substance in our heads,
To resurrect our soils and herds because if not,
Meagre morsels will roll and tumble,
In our babies’ tummies while hunger reigns and rumbles.
It's been a while since I've seen the authentic smiles
Because we are buried and bound.
Our babies don't and won't bounce in the hands of other babies,
But our hands need something to hold on to,
So sn**ch a book and you build a baby.
What is our legacy and what is our branding?
A land of countless brainless babies?!
No, these fed-up babies gotta be brained up ladies.
It's been a while since I've seen the authentic smiles
Because life's been bitter as bile.
We've been running for miles, fighting for true smiles.
A smile is being an intellectual state, a state of mind
Achievable when to letters and numbers we're no longer blind.
Even if the world be unkind, intellectual transformation for each of our kind,
Is all there is on our minds, the purpose of our might.
It's been a while since I've seen the authentic smiles,
As we’ve been at war to be whole for a while.
Our world is flooded with one battle or the other,
So we want to be as armed as the others.
These are the weapons we own when duty calls,
The sharp pens and pencils, lethal to the problems of the planet,
Rewriting the fate of our land as they scar the face of the paper.
These are the weapons we own when battle roars.
The facts and formulas jumping off pages and screens,
To save our people and silence their screams.
These are the weapons we own when the globe needs to be untangled.
The fontanels that crack with stretched thought
And not ferrying vessels of corrupted water
These are the weapons we own,
And if any of us don't have our own,
Then we will sing this same song:
For weapons we long,
So for weapons, we toil
Till each of us has weapons of their own.