When they speak of my people,
We are: “curry munchers”, “ragheads”, “terrorists”, “FOBs”
We own the corner shops
We drive taxis
but I was born with too much stardust in my veins to fit into your stereotypes
I am more than mangoes
More than sweet dripping from the prison of your teeth and the sweat of your tongue
I am the Earth in which it was grown
The dirt
The dust
The bone
The blood
The broken and the spirit.
They come for my culture
And leave my people behind
But we are kissed by the stars
We, who live with more gold in our skin than these sun soaked streets
I am 1 part human and 2 parts partition
I am a million dead and split down the middle on official documents
British Indian
British Indian
British Indian
This is what happens when disdain and privilege marry
Radcliffe only ever knew of walls and geography,
sliced into borders
Slaughtered and survived
Our parents are polyglots
But intelligence means nothing unless it sounds English
it’s not: releew, rewisit, rewise
it’s relieve,
revisit,
revise until you remember
we fought and
barely made it out alive
Now we break our jaws to spit broken English
trying to acclimate in a land too far from love
Ignorant they stand
aggrandising
adorning
admiring themselves
in stolen diamonds
basking in the might of majesty
and the glory of an empire built on shattered spines
Their history books are kind, full of selective amnesia:
they never mention the ravaging of our lands
only the creation of our roads
But oh my people,
Aren’t we beautiful and broken and brilliant?
poeliticaljazz 