Existential Interlopers Poem by Oluwatomiwo Akinyemi

Every day I set out
In search of boundless happiness
The more I get close
The farther it looks

Like a bottle
I am enclosed
The rage flowing through me
Made a river out of my bloodstream

Just like that my labour is wiped
Into the illusions of forget-full-ness
Now they have forgotten so soon
All the good works our four fathers did

Tire-less-ly they were abused
Blood and sweat they spilled
The weak experienced death
Of shark-ly magnitude

Like a fish for harvest
We were cornered and parked
Like a sardine in a tin
Their world should have been ours

Now we go back
To recover a willy-tinny beat
Of all our four fathers toiled for
Rather than reward us

Interlopers we are called
Like rams for slaughter
We where mauled&maimed
All in search of livelihood

I thought we were brothers
Despite our differing colour
But raher we are treated
As if we are a being devoid of blood

This exist-tense we live in
Is shark-ling and *trepidate-ing*
All for the sake of survival
In an illusory existence

At the end of the day
We are all interlopers
Because we did not create this utopia
We cannot lay claim to what we didn't make