The Altitude I Crave

The Altitude I Crave

That altitude I crave but may never attain
Altitude for kings and queens above the sky
A place for whole humans as Africans imply
Not half women of loopholes who don’t belong
In dreams and imaginations only, I do obtain
To wake later and behold a stinking shithole

A common single African woman, I am known
Who no penny was yet dangled on her hairy head
And no master yet to dignify her womanhood
Whose back has wrapped and cuddled not a baby
There, I can never climb with my upturned shoes
Till my name find its way to bosom of a trustee

A cockroach is never innocent among fowls they say
And stockfish cooked in the palace kitchen do not pong
But, the branded ogbanjes can pollute the sacred throne
Of whole men and women in adulterous brotherhood
It’s hard to be me in my upturned shoes, on a lone path
Hard to connect and soar above the skies, still a single

How can I walk this path above the skies many miles away?
Around fellow blacks in white coats promoting grey views
Darting their fiery eyes whenever I rise to talk or mingle
And turning up their noses whenever I cross their busy path
I may never attain the altitude I crave, as I’m tagged, ‘unwhole’
I only will when ‘I’ becomes ‘we’, or when I stop being me