My name has two meanings: “free man” and “destined
to die.” Lately I’m wondering if they’re not one in the same.
The kind eyed woman places the yellow writing
stick between my fingers and smiles with the light of ten African suns behind
her patient eyes when I finally understand the grip. She cups consonants away
from my rough, ebony hand- my palms a lighter brown, like milk clouding in the
recesses of Sunday morning coffee. I want to trace the letters on the paper to
show these ivory people in their swift metropolis that I, too, have knowledge.
I can work until my stomach is wailing and depleted because I have felt the
pain before. Pain is nothing to me and hunger is as certain as my skin is the
color of dark chocolate.
I write in hollow echoes and trace enigmas on the
dotted lines, but the sounds don’t return to my ears in language. Dialect dives
away from my understanding and the thin sounds of English are darker even than
the hopeful iris roaring against my pupils. I want the cheerful teacher to know
that I am educated! In my country I have ideas and values; in my country I am
cunning and skilled. The children watch the pads of my agile feet fly along the
rocks and avoid the poisoned plants on the path returning from the well. I have
an anthology of love and strength that I wish to share in a world that does not
yet understand the inner workings of my library.
Here, I am merely an anonymous child. Any
brilliance is suffocated by the dark velvet curtain laced between my throat and
my tongue. The words come out erroneously- they fly from my mouth backwards and
muffle against a listener’s ears. I am dumb and voiceless. The teacher sees my
despondent eyes and I recognize the understanding reflecting back in her own.
She knows, and that is a stronger voice than any language in the world.
I look back down at the blanched white paper fade
to gray with my harried attempts and think about the world that I shed like a
snake skin. I realize that mostly I need to find the words to help what I left
behind: to explain the day that Adisa was pulled into the room where they keep
the knives, the room that slices the souls of the village women. Two years and
a week ago today I recall the men with the perverse eyes pulling her by the
shoulders as understanding dawned on her and quickly transformed to terror. I couldn’t
see once they passed the adobe brick door frame. I know I need to find the English
to describe the way I saw the ice running, stringently, through their veins,
but blood running through their cruel fingers. I need to find the consonants
and vowels to recall the way she stared at the cracked paint in the wall with
ashen eyes that suddenly looked like our Ouma’s. I want to scream at the top of
the magnificent towers about the way the mutilation is only the advent of
cruelty for the women of my village.
Here, I am mute. My screams wretch against the
back of my throat and ring back silent.
The L train carves wormholes in the depths of my insecurities
and the white washed silver rubs spirits away from my vulnerable shoulders. My
skin will lose its pigment like an overused dish cloth from how much the world
has washed out of me. I shiver as the endless time sifts past my dark feet
hitting the sidewalk, but it does not stick to my skin. Time is a thankless
creature that is all around me here. My dejected eyes continue scavenging in
silence.
My name has two meanings: “free man” and “destined to die.” Lately I’m wondering if death can come soon enough to the free.
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