I Was Built To Last. Poem by Black Consciousness Poetry BCP

I was born in the dark, wrapped in the cold, a street soldier I was called, life was tough already at birth. Poverty was already my share, without shelter a place to call home. Without a father I was doomed, no vision no guidance to follow. The stranger no where to be found.

My mother through pain she pushed me into the world, no lights, no rights, no theatre she delivered me. The umbilical cord she cut, separating me from he body but not from her heart she did. She was a warrior then and she of the Devine now. She built me to last.

I was conceived of a woman, nurtured of a woman inside her while feeding me, protecting me, developing me. I was birth by a woman and nursed at her breast. She was my first teacher, my first touch of love, my first chef, my first most of the things in this world and I grew up to worship a male God, this is am yet to understand. Mother built me to last.

I went through the valleys of ghetto life, I lived through the darkness of slums, I survived the horror of township life, I slaved in the gardens of village and farm life, I walked miles on the trains selling to people who didn't have much and I am still here. I was built to last.

I survived the hatred of humanity against the black world, I navigated myself through the traps planted to set me up for failure, when I was cut off I grew back, when I failed I started again, when I was rejected I adjusted, when I was not loved I loved myself, when life hit me down I came back up, I was built to last.

When I was miseducated and misinformed, I unlearnt and detoxed myself from the toxic of miseducation and misinformation. I self educated and destroyed the ignorance on which exploitation feeds. I am built to last. And so is My of my kind.

|HF Swarts|