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.