I am a migrant

 

 

I am a migrant:

I’m shackled to my birth;

I live day to day

From Hand to mouth

With no hope for tomorrow;

 

I have not jumped over walls

Or climbed through fences;

Run through tunnels

Or crossed vast continents;

 

I’ve not been at peril at sea

Capsized in make shift boats

Or overfilled dinghy’s;

Not hid in the undercarriage of a plane;

 

Or travelled under sacks of coffee and vegetables

In large iso boxes;

Not been chased by government officials,

 

 i have not been Harpooned like a baby whale;

Stared down the barrel of a rifle,

Ran behind articulated Lorries;

Crossed rail way tracks in winter

Lined with Barbed wire fencing;

Or lanced by razor wire;

 

hounded by corrupt officials

Or trafficked for a year’s worth of pay;

 

But I am a migrant:

 

Legal but born illegitimately here on this fair soil,

I'm cemented to my past;

No knowledge of my African roots,

Bad memories of my youth;

 

To wind-rushed afro Caribbean parents I was born

Whose love for each other or me or their race

Was sure to never last;

 

My dad was from Antigua

A man of high Ideas;

Empty promises,

Beatings and egotistical prowess

Was all he ever brought home;

 

Severely damaged by loneliness,

Mental illness is what I reaped;

A black man seeking asylum,

Revolving Sectioning’s, ill-repute

And diabolical mistreat.

 

I’m grown now and I’m accustom to swallowing pills,

Having large needles jabbed monthly in my rear;

Pileing on weight with constant diabetes and blood checks

But Old age is what I fear;

 

No…

 

 I am a legitimate migrant 1 in 4 people know me

Even though I have no middle name;

But if I had to choose between the migrants

I see every day on the news, to tell you the truth

No disrespect, I would choose to be in the position that I am.