In the crowded bus of Lusaka,
I met Camila —
her smile shone like the brightest star
torn from the American sky.
“I am from the USA,” she said,
“we were told Africa is backward—
no roads, no lights,
only savages wandering in dust.”
I laughed, yet sorrow weighed my chest.
“Behold these streets, these markets,
these souls full of fire.
Your world hides the truth from you.”
She listened, but with hollow eyes.
Her words betrayed her breeding:
“Our parents say you have lower minds.
Yet as I hear you speak,
I wonder if it is the opposite.”
She asked, “Would you not stay in America?”
“No,” I answered, “I have walked your cities.
I saw no paradise there—
only gilded prisons of glass and steel.”
She leaned closer, whispering,
“We lack moral intelligence.
We look down upon those greater than us.
I like you… yet I cannot love you.”
I told her:
“The soul has no color.
I do not hunger for flesh,
I am drawn to the mind—
I am sapiosexual.”
As I left the bus,
she called after me:
“When I return home,
I will tell them—
Africa is Heaven on Earth,
and America…
is Hell dressed in light.”
summer forest heat
thirst in thin cracks of your lips
let's seek a sweet lake
__________________________________
September 3, 2019
Sing Me A Senryu Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Maureen McGreavy
Song : Señorita
Shawn Mendes
Camila Cabello
You left me alone,
And you did leave with my heart.
You do not even know
It'd tear me apart.
Now you would carry my soul
And put me in dark.
You did not know that
You're the monster in my heart
You're why I'm apart.
By: Camila Fuchs
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