Because my tongue is black
the man from Wall Street
wants to whitewash my words
or subtitle what I say.
Because in the great avenues,
full of luminous signs,
the pain does not look good,
no one is sick,
nobody dies,
there are no hospitals
in the middle of the boulevard.

Because my tongue is black
the man from Wall Street has translated my being into his world.
But he don’t know what means by what I want to say.
Because there is no bitterness in the chocolate factory.
He can’t understand that I don’t want to exchange his car for my heart.

Because my tongue is black
the man from Wall Street
nationalize my words,
get the juice that my voice gives
and makes exotic perfume to sell it to buyers of countries.

Because happiness is a product.
As my tongue is black
my cry of anguish is not official
And the man from Wall Street thinks that watering my shoebox
is enough not to leave his city of stars.

But the man from Wall Street
has never left home
and does not know how to speak in the house of God.

Montse Lopez Muley Abdhalha
(MUSSIA)

Translator’s note: original poem written in Catalan. Translated with the sole purpose of conveying its general meaning.