Last of a Line

DEAR DIARY

i am the last of a line

it stops here with me

no children, as yet, to pass the blood on

to flow over the smoothed rocks

of an ancestors foundation

last of a line

where the estuary ends

And as a child, first generation born un the UK, I make sense of my world

With  British Tongue and brown skin.

The book I am to write is of how We came to be here

of how this world's history branded We,

And I am to make sense of the archipelago

Of stories, pebbles washed up on a the shores of

an old empire coughed me out

A free radical

that came into its own,

the thorn in the throat of a giant, a clot

In the brain of cultural tyranny,

Branding my sex, my skin

I am the last of a line

standing here, as a writer, storyteller

and i invite you, as friend (you can 'unfriendly' me later)

i invite you along the journey of a self, soul,

an artist, a woman, a human.

I invite you along a journey unpacking the secrets,

ingrained in the very air we breath

in the DNA of power structures,

that steer me into quintessential archetypes,

stereotypes of sex and race until I  become a a cliche.

my mind is a saline jar full of the study samples

of names i have been called over the years

an exotic, negrotic,

a slave, a negra, a breeder,

a golly wog, nig nog, a coloured, a black, a nigger,

a mammy, a maid, a matriarch,

a negro (empowered),  a panther

a black bitch, a ho and some where

in all the shouting I get called a Queen.

my own logo, with an askewed crown

how, tell me, how do I reconcile my status as the last of this blood line.

i try to pin it down, this 'I, me, self

First generation born in the UK

shaded by  my mothers lashes

as she blinks the ash from my eyes

the legacy  falls  back

into bright brutal cycle of re-memory

of a blood line interrupted

The last of a line

the buck stops, starts here

Written by Zena Edwards©