Salt Roads

I haven't written a poem in a while, so I thought what the hell let me post this one. I wrote it a little over three months ago. As Erykah Badu said "keep in mind that I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my shit."

I wrote this poem while daydreaming in a class. It is based off a book that I pretty much fell in love with called The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson. Get the book, read it, then pass on what you've learned to others.

Salt Roads


We’ve lost ourselves in the oceans
Drifting, our souls left in the water
The salty water
It use to fill our souls

That water once led to Congo beats
And cosmology long past
The water gone
The skin lightened
The hair forced and pressed the water out

Now we are left with roads
Salt roads
Roads once filled with the ocean water that lead to Ibo land, sea
breeze, drum beats and lack of clothing
The water… gone
The clothes cover the body once glorified
Now demonized as, ‘other’
Covered by cloth that dried the water

Now we are left with roads
Salt roads
That use to hold ocean water that lead to lands now forgotten
That led to histories now untold
That led to languages now unspoken
That led to a beauty now unseen