First Place

They said I was too young to recognize the tremble of a talking drum in my throat said to speak the language of the elders I must first spit the milk teeth from my mouth make a wish grow a new set so I could finally say something worth chewing on they asked how I learned to speak this way a whole continent blooming on my tongue I’m just trying to show you where I’ve come from barefoot dreams and dusty roads running with a pocket full of stories that began first in my mother’s mouth scraped clean from the insides of her womb I entered the world with poetry on my fingertips umbilical cord wrapped tight around my neck I had already learnt the art of survival accepted struggle as a birthright passed down through fluid vibrations a rhythm I could never shake and they call me the daughter of a dark continent as if we were not born with electricity in our veins as if our bodies were not a conduit for light even with a severed mother tongue we cast anchors down our throats to find a waterlogged language hidden in the belly of a sinking ship when we first knew that even skin had a voice that could send an SOS to God we have weathered greater storms have ridden the backs of waves that threatened to split us in two we know what it is for the boom in our chests to sound louder than cannons I am a collection of stories spoken even in silence secret messages travelling through a melody under the cover of night this is my inheritance words that plant themselves in the base of my throat and dare me to choke or breathe I am stitched together by the hands of the village that raised me kept whole by all of their best intentions cloaked in the impossibility of dreams my every breath is proof of the miraculous I am an endless poem stripped bare of metaphor an unlikely survival story the daughter of a relentless love