can accommodating my name
can accommodating my name
can accommodating my name
(for a very close and special friend as she’s . . .)

never gone try to leave from here again
or try to be nobody else but me
this is my home where i belong
and i’ve learned to lean on all the things
they meant for me right here

those with whom i went as friends
along this road to drunken ends
they pushed me off and left me here
to run after what they said never minded
Lord knows
i was trying so hard
to be something else
i thought they wanted then

for years i lay used
crying in the pale hairy arms
of those looking not like me
and i was gnawd and carelessly chewd
by dark and dried ancestral ‘canes
in suits with flowers and other things
and i learned how then
to always show this other face
talking in those other words

my legs they full
of many little broken veins
there is no further that i can go
all i have is what i could’ve been
and the pain here waiting for tomorrow
i’m getting ready to die
‘cause there’s nothing else left
that i can do

Copyright © 1993 Asili Ya Nadhiri