BURNT SKIN!

It’s seven minutes past four.

The street was grey, soulless to the core.

The murk soothed my bones. For the crickets,

indifferently I wished death. For peace death begets.

Their mourns, not song to me. Lamentations. Woes.

I passed by a night club. These need be shut down.

It beats me, still, what fun people see in noise. Clowns.

My Scorpion crackles. My Yamaha xs1100. Only one in town.

Through a dark alley. This alley was as dark as it was filthy.

I smiled at the darkness. On the filth lay a woman…

She was asleep, I didn’t care to be stealthy.

She, for some nasty reason, reminded me of Ahera.

She, for some dirty gut reason.

The nostalgia, the wistfullness. The terror.

I wanted so bad to run her over. I saw it, like a vision.

That if I ran her over, that if she bled to death,

That if…forget about it. All horror.

Ahera, the woman who raised me. Or seized my soul?

The woman who gave me all my scars.

All these scars that define my entire person.

I remembered how she’d brand my young body with swastikas and crosses.

I could still taste, bitterly, the acrid smell of my burning skin.

I was her effigy. On my skin she had her legacy trademarked.

On my skin…names, slogans, symbols…burning skin.

Ahera, the only kin I had had…burnt my skin.

The wistfullness, on the eve of my 16th birthday.

How I had locked her in the shack we called home,

and in her home, her shack, I did set her on fire.

The pungent smell of burning flesh. Burning skin.

I was doing the burning. I was sated. What joy.

I remember the smirk on my face. That Monday morning.

That Monday morning that I was arrested. Justice they said.

Justice, for so many years I had sought. I laughed.

Yes. I pleaded guilty. Prison, I thought, was my justice.

“I might find peace in prison, maybe I wouldn’t slit my wrists or tie up a noose…guilty your ladyship!”

These I remember with unwelcome nostalgia…

I’m on the stretch leading to my house.

My fears crop up. This house…

This house, unappolgetically makes my blood curdle

Should I? I contemplate drowning. I see a puddle…

Screw my meaningless life. Screw. Manila. Screw.

I fear her. I love her. I dread her. Manila. My death, cue?

The stench of methamphetamine, the reek of cannabis.

Manila’s body was a hard drugs’ refuge.

She was expecting my baby. See, her body was my church.

She never wanted kids. She hated me. She loved me. She.

She, the love of my life. She, brutal recluse.

Her gory present borne of her gruesome past…

The rape…

Manila…my anorexic seraph. How I loved her dead eyes.

I, this time with stealth, pushed open my front door.

On the wooden floor she lay. Limp. Maybe lifeless…

On her left, a blood stained bayonet glimmered..

Manila!!

…

My world as seen through insanity

NambuyaEmbalabala

Special thanks to Jabulile Sigola ☆☆☆