Freedom By O.b.i

Freedom is not the feel of the breeze on your face or the heat of the sun on your back, maybe it is for the confined, but it is not for you who have been made to believe that because of a few biological differences, there is a limit to what you can be, you can’t be too much, at least the head does not turn without the neck, so you should be contended being the neck, you should know that what freedom is for you is the realization that you are not a body part, you are whatever you can imagine and dream of yourself.

Freedom is not the ability to spend a week in the Bahamas unflustered, it is not the ability to shop without looking out for the price tags, maybe it is for the broke, but it is not for you who have been made to believe that unless you look a bit more light skinned or a little curvier, then there is a limit to your happiness, freedom for you is the realization that if you have a blood that is red and you have a heart that can love, then happiness will come if you want it.

Freedom is not the ability to choose between good and ‘evil’, it is not the ability to choose between a blessing and a ‘course’, maybe it is for those without a heritage or a history but it is not for you who have been thought to call your own ‘evil’ and your heritage a ‘course’. Freedom for you is the realization that they only called you evil, but that is not what you are. You are the descendants of brave men and women who died resisting indoctrination and oppression and that is what they will not tell you about your ancestors.

Third World Dreams by O.b.i

The day had started with laughter like every other day, mama again was the angel she always was, mama tickled Koremi out of bed, except that it was not what you will like call a bed, it was rather a big mat he shared with Boma, Imani, Ebi, Lulu and their cousin Amaju. But it doesn’t matter if it was a mat or water bed, when he slept, it was another world, and in this world mama did not have to sleep on the floor because the mat could only contain 6 closely packed children, in this world Mama never had to pretend to be full during dinner, Koremi knew she was lying, there was no way she could hawk all day and not be starving, that was one of the many sacrifices mama made for her children in this cold world, she always set herself on fire to keep her children warm. In Koremi’s dreams, father was not lying under the pile of earth at the back of the house, he came back every evening wearing the yellow jumpsuit he wore one morning many years ago before they brought him back home and put him under the ground, it was a long time ago and Koremi was still little boy but he could still remember, he remembered the smile and the warmness the man in the jumpsuit brought back every evening. He wished father was still here, he wished his school was not 20 miles away, he wished his classroom had desks and the teachers came to school more often, he wished Boma was not always sick and mama did not spend all the money from her hawking on Boma’s drugs, he wished mama did not even have to hawk. Koremi wished for a lot of things he could not get, but when he slept his dreams was a slightly better place and that was where he wanted to be, so every morning when he wakes up to mama’s crooked smile, he always promised himself to take her out of this place, he never felt like he belonged here, so he promised to build a new world filled with possibilities and pristine laughter and all they need and maybe a little of what they want... Another3rdWorldDream.