We’ve been reduced to nothing
Bent down by forces entrusted with our survival,
Broken to helplessness like a bamboo during a hurricane.
We have become slaves under the roofs of our fathers;
We are beggars, at the table of our mothers’ food grace
Scrambling for crumbs that fall from the plates our mothers have prepared,
We are subdued to tearful pleading for what is ours in birthright
Having bones and the dredges of the cup dangled before us in mockery,
Like Pavlov’s dogs.
We have become the foreigners in the land of our birth
And the whip does well to put us in place should we raise our voices
In supplication for the countenance of our father.
We are the children neglected to the shadows
Yet, it is in our youth that the future lies
Whereof then, can tomorrow come if we consume its very essence today?
This poem was published in the January 2022 Edition of the WSA Magazine
Read – Wound – A Poem by Melinda Fakudze, Eswatini
