International Supermarket
Right now, I’m drinking Kashmiri chai
It’s looks like the Muhatta palace we saw that time
I dip my sesame biscuits
Rich with ghee
Don’t let your hair down
Or you’ll get their fleas
I remember racing down the hallway
Baskets weak
Trolleys are brittle
Iron feet
Tongues outspoken
Pashto and Urdu become woven
Here in the supermarket everybody is welcome!
We have a library of spices
A collection with wide range
Butchers with knives
Sweating blood for some time
Mass produce
I love the 15-packet eggs for just £2.99
I see families and grandparents standing in line
I see generations before and after enthused, concern
But I don’t really see their faces no more
Masks hang
Up and side-ways
Just up make your mind
Keep it on
Or you’ll get fined
They keep blaming us on the TV
Saying we breed too quickly
Because it’s Jummah at the mosque
Every Friday, we’re just like moths
Attracted to the Light
Community lost
I refuse to cough
At least I’m not like them
Those uneducated, brown men
Walking down the streets
Careless, blasting their beats
Go home!
Stay indoors
Or you’ll get reported for the breaking law
Don’t start a fight
Don’t tell me why Christmas is alright
Or how all the goras were sunbathing at the beach
Instead, they should be protesting tryna get
Boris impeached
Or is it just freedom of speech?
Everyone’s welcome here
We don’t tolerate racism
If you do, you’ll disappear
You’ll be forgiven because you’re our only hope right now
Telling us to wash our hands
Saying insha'Allah so we’ll survive
If not, just take five
Everyone’s clueless at the moment
Praying for some normality they think they want
So life can go back to normal, where we can walk down the streets
Meeting our friends at the beach
Having picnics in peace
Not addressing the real problems we need to unteach
Or correcting the curriculum, telling them why we’re really here
We need to tell this nation
Instead, there’ll be a drought
With Brexit, corona, why don’t you kick us out?
You can’t
You need us
Or everyone would fall apart
Begging us on their knees
Oh please!
Let me see
London would fall empty
Millions of lives would have been lost
We’re here because you left us with no cost
Apparently, Britain should be one of the best countries in the world
My mum tells me to be grateful because I’d rather not be at home
Where life is endless hard work
Unpaid
Unskilled labour
Housework
I was born rich, feeling poor
Feeling displaced
Having this delusion of grandeur
Imagining a utopia
Colourful world
Law is simple
Now you’ve been proven wrong
Look at what you’ve done to Hong Kong
You left an island alone to drown
Sinking deeper without your crown
It has been taken over
Voices mute
Technological advancement true
No opposition aloud
One day we’d be witnessing those camps
That imprison people leaving them blank
Forcing them to lose themselves
Stripping their religion
Beards cut off
Where halal becomes haram
Scarves gone
Fertility lost
Now Islam is just left to rot
By Amina Beg