AIN'T NO BREATHING FOR BLACKS....I can't breathe!!

Melanin is allergic to breathe
As you can't be black and breath the air
Though free but its chokes your being
And send you 6 under the gallow

I can't breathe even in my native home
Surrounded by people of same colour and culture
For a moment I rise to excellence I am reminded
'You're not not from here, you're are odidung, settler'
'Hence whatever things you aspire for belongs to us
The owner of the land, amana isoñ, Oyo ifi.'

I can't breathe
Where I am only a brother during a farming season
As I am expected to participate in bush clearing for cultivation
And to excuse the gang when the harvest is due and the merry made

I can't breathe
As every progress I made attracts the wrath and envy
Of the land owners, Eyo Ifi, amana isoñ
As I am expected to wallow in mediocrity to please their egos
As every good things of life, of a right belongs to Eyo Ifi and not Odidung, settlers.

I can't breathe
As those I once called brothers, family
Rise in frenzy hate and jealousy to raise the dust
Of a forgotten ancestry where the borns and cords of childhood interred
To mock and subjugate and bury the ties of the past and our common humanity
For it is easy to tag me Odidung, settler, in order to deprive me of a right of being
As insisting on such right would earn their distorted history
'You're from the Bo and not Bia, you're the ow and yo'

I can't breathe
As my sisters and brothers are deprived jobs on merit
Though their meritorious contributions stared us in the face
They're told 'You're not from here, go to your your State.'
Ask Cross River State and others, they'll tell you!

I can't breathe
As Ośu cast system dehumanised us
And create a life time of social barrier and deprivation among my people
As we a bound slaves to the indigent
Deserving of nothing good but shame and generational indignities

I can't breathe
As I am not from a majority tribe and my name
Not traced to a 7th Century culture as it is only those
With such lineage that are entitled to a prominent appointments
In Government and even social gatherings

I can't breathe
As my country men and women are gunned down daily
By men empowered by Government and paid for with our common patrimony
As trumped up charges are the only evidence to silence us forever
Even as those paid to protect us are killing in numbers, we can't breathe!

I can't breathe
Cos it seems Nature has conspired against us
Or else why would blackness attracts so much negativity?
Why would black people kill each other with no remorse?
Why would our leaders loot our countries dry instead of
Developing it with our vast rich resources?

I can't breathe
Even in Africa our lungs and larynx have been ripped apart
Asphyxiated by poor leadership and ethnic/religious bigotry
As we gasp for breath on daily basis and we can only imagine
What our ancestors faced in the plantations across US and Europe
Still even in the 21st century, their descendants are still bearing the
New Jim Crow's axes begging for breath.

I can't breathe
As you rise in solidarity with the Floyd's Mantra
Know that American people have risen in one voice for Humanity
As no party or religious sentiments are prioritised but sense of humanity
And also know that Floyd has been given justice even in a land far away
But we are yet to have justice in Africa and worst still, in Nigeria!

Ain't no breathing for blacks!

Johnpo 2020.