Our dreams are not our own.
Our parents, in loving us;
stifled us.
With their concern
for our future, our wealth
security, our happiness
foisted onto us
the dreams of their design.
Our achievements are not our own.
They are the karmic resolution
of the mistakes,
the unfulfilled aspirations
of our loving parents.
We carry the weight
of their hopes whilst negotiating
for ourselves
an
unfamiliar
terrain
in which we are the other.
Where is the space
for the unique
longings of the heart
that we can hold?
They have been
dismissed
in infinitesimal
waves of the hand
and barbs from a slick tongue
from the
gap
that at times feels like a gulf
that we can never bridge
that has come to represent
so much of our experience
between our parents
and ourselves.
Compounded
by the gap,
between our friends
our school
and neighbourhoods
and our brown bodies
and minds
not at home in this white mans’ land
nor at home in our own.