TWISTED TRUTH

They twist the truth till it fit in they mouth,

Take the whole harvest and they hand you the drought.

I know what I built, I remember the nights —

You can move the whole ladder, I still climb to the light.

Accra to Toronto with a suitcase of proofs,

Two degrees in the lining and a folder of truths.

Wrote the whole backbone while the office was dark,

Stand-up in the morning, they presenting my work.

“Great teamwork, Kwame” — that's the language they use

When a man's whole labour get split into news.

Say my name in the meeting, they call the tone aggressive,

Same volume from Kevin get logged as impressive.

So I document quiet, keep receipts in a drive,

Learn the second language: how to stay alive.

Mama asks how the winter, I say cold but I'm fine —

Never tell her the coldest thing here ain't the climate, it's the climb.

Lagos raised her sharp, New York made her exact,

Saw the whole portfolio bleeding, brought the map to patch that.

Slid the model 'cross the table, room went quiet as stone,

Thursday it's a strategy — with somebody else's name on.

“We all had the idea” — funny how that goes,

The credit find the loudest, never find the one who knows.

Sycophants promoted for the laugh at the joke,

Zero value shipped, but they golden with the folk.

They said she's not a culture fit, translation: not compliant,

Called her difficult for being the only one reliant.

She go home and question if she dreamed the whole thing —

That's the trick of the gaslight: make you doubt what you bring.

Khartoum in his shoulders, cubicle grey,

Engineer that don't flinch when the small comments play.

Won't laugh at the punchline that's built on his skin,

Won't massage a fragile ego just to fit in.

So they move the whole target, rewrite what success mean,

Metrics for the quarter change like a bad dream.

Hit the number, they say the number was the wrong one,

Fix the system, they say the culture piece was undone.

Not a performance problem — that's a mirror they can't hold,

Dignity's the one thing that he never put up for sold.

Twelve-hour clock and a prayer at the door,

He was born of a people that survived worse before.

Three passports, one story, same corridor light,

Same open-plan silence at the end of the fight.

They don't hate our labour, they just hate our name on it,

Take the whole cathedral, leave us out the acknowledgement.

But the ledger of the soul don't run on their books —

We know what we built. We know how it looks.

Kwame still coding. Amina still counting.

Tariq still standing.

Twist it how you want it —

the truth got a spine.