(After Audre Lorde)

You will be paused and searched/Do not fix your tongue for the one who whips blue lights/
Carry your hood like it’s your coronation on this Highstreet/
Spark your spliff and chant your anthem ‘free my nigga [insert code-name here]’/
Make your daily commute to the chicken shop and spice up your stomach for another marathon across this postcode/
Prepare your battles against the neighboring park and gear up between the JD store and Argos/
Seek mothers forgiveness so that she may sleep tonight, while the moon mothers you in replace during this crusade of ends/
Keep up the local economy and whiten more skins for silver and gold/
When the sun is up, you watch your body inherited another slice and another kitchen print/
You will scream at the TV for tainting your truth, stealing your ethics and words to point you out as bad omen/
You will have to cut few umbilici cords and stiffen another man’s walk to Aldi – he has no reason to buy babyboy chocolates/
You will move up the ranks and earn the imprints of Armani, and Gucci and true religion and more but not your father’s name, nor your mother’s womb/
Your will toast with a KA and the feast of your victory will commence in Sam’s/
You will receive an oystercard to separate white dust and clam the lines under this city/
On this [insert tube station here] Station you will learn the ultimate sales pitch and sell/
Your best customers will be rural-born-students lost in this city’s tfl and play tit for tat with the children from the same estate because they seem to be doing well and you cannot like this/
Your boys will spud and love you but not enough to carry your heavy body from the zebra crossing to the grave/
And so blast your drill and ride you Santander horse into the forest of the blocks/For this is how you will survive as a yougen in London/

Part of SAWTI Zine Issue 1

Illustration by Nawal

SAMAN-TAR POET
21-year-old Swedish born, Somali diaspora. A student at university. A collective member of Roundhouse Poetry Collective 2019/20. A Diaspora, that observes cultures and peoples in relation to my geography and rationalises my distinct diasporic experience (in London) through poetry. I am keen on 20th Century Black histories. I am influenced by the likes of Audre Lorde, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Frantz Fanon, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison. I am in the pursuit to be published as a writer and poet. As well as, an academic in the field of Afropean History and the Black Diaspora experience in Europe. I consider myself, Pro-Black, a Black Feminist and an Islamic-Socialist, a Pan-Africanist, and, a Sufi.