Iniside Outsider Poem by Lebogang Mashile

Home is a foreign land
That hurls the might of its confusion around the world
Strangers believe they know my bruises
The smallness of boxes they call eyes
And woo them into a false comfort

I will not live in boxes
They are not my home
Home is laughter
Home is rounded figures
Home is a sharpened mental weapon
To be wielded against foreigners of the spirit

I am tired of being different
My feet burn from the fires of those
Who have been anointed
With the certainty of origins

I will wander the earth
In search of my tribe
Or build it from the shreds of boxes
With my own hands