Olatunji Osho-Williams
Royalty ravaged my family tree,
the invisible white
hand of the market, that tore
roots from limbs from names
and sucked our sugar
and beat us with the cane.
Royalty ravaged my family tree,
so my blood runs
through forests, and jungles, and leaves red rubied streaks
stretched about the Atlantic:
a deep-sea gene map of
family who never found Atlantis.
Royalty ravaged my family tree yet
I still daydreamed of castles, kings, and queens
with English names so much
I colonized my own.
Anglicization ripped the Yoruba out of these
Black lips, a lah
switched for a luh there
and suddenly Dracula drains the black from
this skin.
Royalty ravaged my family tree
because my blood didn’t own
a coat of arms or
a gothic fortress or
a painted fresco or
themselves.
My blood is maroon
Maroon like the people
Maroon like brown and red
Maroon like Black Loyalists
Maroon like purpled, bruised, calloused, cramped bodies
finally freed by divine force of will.
It is the soil of Freetown’s Cotton Tree.
It is brown,
It is old,
It is gnarled,
It is strong,
It is ever growing.
That is royalty.
Olatunji Osho-Williams is a sophomore studying Journalism, International Studies, and Spanish. He enjoys orange juice with espresso, and is a lover of all things fantasy and sci-fi.
