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Blood Stains On The Pavement


Blood stains on the pavement
The footprints of an extinguishing life force

Squalor, death and rust
They care not for us

Gunshots, disembodied screams
And the ever-present swan song of police sirens

Little kids play on concrete streets
No place to house innocence when home possesses no safety,
Nor does it offer security

In the men we can never trust, devoid of wisdom and humility   
Masculinity as fragile as a wine glass

We once wore deviance as the voice of the silenced
Now we neatly tuck it away together with all the agency of our womanhood

We weave street lights like moths to flame
My brothers forget us
My sisters allow it
And the children cannot help but witness it

They placate our existence with the amnesia we find at the bottom of a bottle
They wait like vultures

They poison us with unsolicited prescriptions,
When only they carry the sickness

Young boys raise hands and fists
For a cause rooted only in violence

We die, cry and subscribe to the brutality
The black man has lost his humanity

Because to intervene and interrogate is the seal to a dying fate
Hate, venom, the thickened slime and grime of the misplaced

Comments

  1. simthembileNovember 13, 2018 at 12:20 AM

    damn, your writing is personified, it feels as you writing of your experiences, it sounds like a shout(Scream) for help and now its deeper not because of tirey because of disappointment.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Solam MacatshaNovember 13, 2018 at 2:34 AM

    It is a reflection of my time spent here in Joburg CBD. It speaks to all the hate and harassment we as women suffer from.

    ReplyDelete

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