By Karwitha Kirimi & Tramaine Suubi

​i will celebrate this continent until i leave it forever.

not leave it by rocky boat or shaky plane but leave it by dying;                                                                                  my spirit leaving this body that is as dark and pockmarked as my continent.

i will celebrate this continent until we believe real life happens here too.

i will write until Dakar becomes our city of love – not Paris.                                                                                    and Nairobi becomes our shorthand for urban – not London.

i will write until peace floods the streets of Khartoum and Juba.

i will write until bullets stop raining in the dunes of Somalia.

i will write until the rivers of N’Djamena run clean.

i will write until we backpack to Lalibela and Asmara,                                                                                                   not Roma and Venezia.

i will write this continent down in ink  and make Dar es Salaam our hotspot for singing                                          and Kampala for dancing. 

i will write until the lore of the Masai is as legendary                                                                                                    as the lore of the Romani.

i will write until Kigali becomes our standard for stability.

i will write until the Congolese heal from the rape by the Belgian bull.

i will write until we revive our waning but warm heart of Malawi. 

i will write until the Tonga weave                                                                                                                                  Zambia and Zimbabwe back together again.

i will write until Soweto redefines the beauty of the movie.

i will write until we legitimize Lesotho and Swaziland                                                                                                  just as Luxembourg and Monaco are legitimized.

i will write until Liberia is a united black diaspora.

i will write until Abidjan recovers every last tusk of ivory.

And Ghana earns just as much money for its chocolate                                                                                       as Switzerland does for stealing it.

i will write until Libreville and Freetown are truly free.

i will write until the unbreakable spirit of Kunta Kinte                                                                                                    is reborn in the Gambia.

i will write until Togo and Benin are anchors of the west.

i will write until all three Guineas are thriving,                                                                                                       not surviving.

i will write until truth telling shakes Burkina Faso.

i will write until Niger is steady like their river.

i will write until Nouakchott is the desert’s beloved                                                                                                        child with the sea.

i will write until Malabo is as sexy as Barcelona                                                                                                              and Douala is as charming as Lisbon. 

i will write until the Sahwari peoples are validated                                                                                                        like the Slavic peoples.

i will write until Cairo reclaims our continent.

i will write until Tripoli stands,                                                                                                                                            until Tunis embraces all their colors,                                                                                                                            until Algiers dresses old battle wounds.                                                                                                                         and Marrakech hosts a festival to celebrate.  

i will write until the Seychelles are treasured                                                                                                                for the hidden gems that they are.

i will write until Sao Tome and Praia become                                                                                                    keystones of the Atlantic Ocean.

i will write until Comoros and Mauritius become                                                                                              touchstones of the Indian Ocean.

i will write until all our islands are protected by Afrikans,                                                                                          not protectorates of Europeans.

i will write so beautifully that Madagascar will crawl                                                                                                 back to the mainland and be wrapped up                                                                                                                       in Mozambique’s arms.

so beautiful will the risen Afrika be.

we will write in Bamako, revise in Luanda,                                                                                                                      and publish in Gaborone.

we will wash our tears away in Bangui                                                                                                                       and laugh our cares away in Djibouti.

we will drink in Bujumbura and eat in Lagos,                                                                                                            we will wind through Omaruru and wade                                                                                                                         in the Nile’s golden shores.

we will live in Afrika,                                                                                                                                                           and Europa will be our alternative literature.

Bio:

Karwitha Kirimi is a cultural worker and poet based in Nairobi, East Afrika. Her practice spans poetry, ritual, and research. When not loitering under the bougainvilleas, she can be found drinking the moon.

Tramaine Suubi is a multilingual Bantu writer. They were born by the Nile River and raised by the Potomac River. They are a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Their poems live in Brink Literary Magazine, Solstice Literary Magazine, and other spaces. Tramaine is the managing editor of Writivism and daylights as a teacher. Their forthcoming book debut is a full-length poetry collection called “phases.” Tramaine is in love with all things water.