In the heart of what #TotalShutDown was fighting against, violence against women and children is the beast. In the seams lays patriarchy.
Being a male poet and part of an ensemble of other male poets, what do we know of a womxn’s thoughts when she walks the streets at night? What do we know of her fear when a group of men enter her sight?
In light of #TotalShutDown, @OpusPoetry took the backseat and a womxn took over #PoeticLicence
Sinazo Somhlahlo
, writes:
They said they would fix me. I, completely unaware that I was broken to start with.
They determined to dismantle me and put me back together the way they saw fit.
I remember that night. I was walking home like I had always done. The street had memorised my footprints,
I had used this route since I was 6. There wasn’t a single star in sight.
They all seemed to hide from a glutinous moon that devoured their light even though it was full.
It hung ominously above me, as if spurring me home, illuminating my safe passage.
Sinazo Nazfloe Somhlahlo with Lebo Mashile at the #TotalShutDown march this week.
Picture : Twitter
But it failed in the crevices where darkness reigns. That is where I spotted him.
A shadow lurking between the rays of that dimly lit street light.
The one that has never worked quite right.
I immediately dropped my gaze, pushed my hands into my pockets, added a little bounce to my step and prayed;
“Dear God, please make him blind to the slight swell of breasts under the chest of my shirt,
or the lack of bulge in the crotch of my pants.
Make me a mirror image of this shadow, that he sees himself in me”
My prayers fell on deaf ears. The only response, whistles and loud jeers from three other shadows
fast approaching from behind me.
Right there and then I knew with certainty, this howling pack of wolves was on the hunt and I, I was their intended prey.
“Beg for mercy”, I thought. But the words barely left my larynx when I felt sharp talons tightly grip my trachea.
He pulled me into his embrace and whispered almost lovingly,
“I will make you a real woman even if it kills you!”
He said it was their God-given right to violate me, to exorcise this demon from me, to rape me into conformity.
It’s funny how saints and sinners are so perfectly aligned in darkness.
They say man was created in God’s likeness, but I looked upon the face of Lucifer that night.
I tried to fight. But my limbs were pinned down. This was my crucifixion.
But who’s sins was I to die for?
I tried to scream. But my anguish was vanquished against heaving chests that had no heartbeats.
They tried to swallow my soul whole. Their eyes, windows to black holes.
The devil lived inside of them, or maybe heaven sired them.
I mean, If God defines omnipotence, then why would he allow such atrocities?
Except maybe to satisfy His own sadistic tendencies.
Go ahead, call it blasphemy.
Maybe they raped the faith out of me. I felt it flow out of my body in rivers down my face.
I had hoped my own tears could drown me.
They barely noticed the life escape my flesh.
They discarded my lifeless body like trash.
Wild animals have no use for empty carcasses.
It was my mother who discovered the dead body under that street light.
The one that has never worked quite right, a mere glance away from the safety of home.
* Somhlahlo is an award-winning poet. She won the @wordnsound Athol Williams awards 2016
@nazfloe
The Saturday Star