Hunger bites

Hunger bites
My empty-bellied wallet stares at me
My eyes hello back with deeper hollowness

Phones are dead
My uncle says,
Not today

I pick my journal
235 dollars in receivables
But no one has a dime

A friend says
You’ll get through it
Faith without action?

Find me in the morgue!

What’s in the kitchen cabinet?
Floor, sugar, ketchup, and salt
Can’t I make tea?
No, no tea leaves!

But hunger still bites
I call someone
She says I’m a spendthrift!

So I boil water
And take a warm bath
I’m clean in my hunger

Cold Fireplace

I see them rodents gnawing at my toenails
They have eaten everything
The granaries are dry
The fruit basket is empty
And the fireplace has gotten cold

Women have taken to silence
Their territories invaded
They gave them cooking pots
But stole everything to be cooked
They give by the day
They steal them by night

I see their flawed system
Of suppression and oppression
Our sweat nourish their bellies
While we chew at their empty promises
We aren’t men enough to pay rent
We aren’t men enough to pay school fees
So our kids we groom
To work in their plantations

It is slavery
Woven in peals of false brotherhood
White man criminalized blacks for skin color
Now it’s black killing black with hunger
In this food chain everything is flawed
The arrow no longer points at the eater
But still, the prey takes blame for being prey!
Such is the story of my country