BEAR WITH ME: FOR SIERRA LEONE
SONG:
[Bear with me
Bear with me
Bear with me
Teday teday teday
Mama yooooooooo
Den dey cam den dey cam
Mama den dey cam
Den dey cam]
My dreams are still realities that nestle in profanities
As I smell blood they extract from limbs in deadened streams.
The red sea cries, as Babylon sails, but I’m in salone.
Sweet sweet salone teday
Where assailed voices don’t pass Freetown.
So I’m asking freed slaves to come chain me take me away.
Freed slaves come chain and take me away,
To a land where pain isn’t gain
And rain isn’t placed into the fast lane
Of destruction
SONG [Maaama yoo
Mamama yooooo
Sweet salone
Den dey de diee ohhhhhhhhh]
My mother’s bosom warm with security
Rocks me back and forth forth and back
gestating me back to reality, but my body has memory.
The day they divided my legs....
they forced my honeycomb to burst – explode.
They Shot papa - I say I dey yerie yerie - Uncle done run away to green bushe.
Mama mama cam cam cam
So mama rocks me to the present, present, present
Be here in the present
She soothes and says
na dream you dey dream dream deam
But it feels so damn real that this might be my last meal
paradise don gone na sweet sweet salone.
-
See people ask me all the time isn’t it the place
where diamonds reside?
How is it going by the way?
Last time I checked it wasn’t safe
You know, like there are problems there
I then ask....
-
Where where you when they asked me
Short sleeve or long sleeve
Asked me to love a part of me?
Where were you
When they bitched slapped me
And asked raped or pounded
My dear which will you be?
Where were you
When they burnt
Houses down?
Where were you when they burnt schools down?
Intellects and judges down?
Children and brightened dreams down?
Disempowered minds
Political turnarounds
Left all of us in the dogpound
Bear with me when I cry in the night
Bear with me if I’m still angry deep in side
Bear with me if I smoke to escape
Or if I drink to daydream peacefully..
Bear with me when I freak out in bed
Bear with me when my heart violates to be heard
Bear with me when I scream.
Sweet salone salone
Bear with me
Our stories are spilling.
Sweet salone salone
Bear with me
Death is still grieving.
Den say den day den say salone pikin
Una cam back Una cam Una back cam back
salone pikin dem
Una came back
Una forget!
Una forgive!
Bear with me if I cannot forget
Bear with me if I cannot forgive
For My body, his body, her body, our bodies, my body....
has memory.
Bear with me (3 Times).
Fatou Wurie is a writer, blogger, gender advocate amongst other things. She uses her writings to address social issues as it affects women and children. She is the Founder of The Survivors Dream Project, an organization charged with empowering survivors of Ebola with life skills. You can read more of her work at www.thefatoublog.com
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