They can’t bruise any more. Their blood vessels have ruptured, nerve endings are broken.
Their spirits drowned in tears post the first molestation.
Frail hearts, inside minute bodies that could barely carry their weight, cornered to a hasty pulsation.
The left side of their chests has gone hollow.
Four chambers of nothingness pump gallons of sorrow into their bloodstream.
We can never imagine the many selves women birth to preserve the purity of their souls.
Every self has a name. Another one is born when a piece of a woman’s soul dies.
The newborn is Thembi. There are two selves before her.
Thandeka has long retreated to the Shadows with the first sexual assault in October.
Nomsa could better handle the ill-willed advances of the scholar patroller.
She is hood.
But Thandeka was a soft ray of sunshine.
She was not willing to be touched in a way that made her feel less like light,
A way that made her shrink into shadows that would expropriate her gentle soul without compensation. How she wished her destiny was different.
But what are wishes to fate?
What is fate to karma?
Would it not be measured in degree Celsius from the burning hate
In Thandeka’s eyes when they touched her?
First it was the scholar patroller with a vacant spirit.
The ruler of the grand abyss. A sorcerer of pain. Paedophilic devil incarnate.
His touch of death buried Thandeka.
Poetry ensemble, Magnum Opus. From left, Rabbie Wrote, Sibusiso Ndebele and Thobani Mnatmbo. Picture by Lungelo Msibi
It was Nomsa who met the forensic law man who came as a knight in a rusty armour.
With intentions of probing the 87 sexual assault cases.
She thought she could now relax, utter a spell and Thandeka’s confidence would be resurrected.
Nomsa wanted to reclaim her body as her own.
To heal her scars without fear. Spill her heart into the ears of the forensic law man.
But this man was a rebel who abides by predatory values.
Conducts his codes in broken trusts and it is coded in betrayal.
The knight from pits of darkness compelled Nomsa and the self of another learner, Mpumi, to undress right where they learned.
The worst place to be was a classroom at AB Xuma Primary School in Soweto, again.
The same place was where their innocence burned, again.
Another man has come to take selves from these young girls, again.
How could this be happening again?
Standing next to Nomsa was another self of another young girl being victimised by the forensic law man.
The two selves relived the molestation, while 85 others watched a rerun of this horror.
They were told to co-operate. The harm that came to them would be a thing of the past. The man who hurt them would be put behind bars.
All they had to do was to undress for the law man.
They never knew what a forensic investigation looks like.
They only knew what it didn’t look like. And that is a finger in their genitalia.
This ritual was too familiar. It leaves ashes inside their tiny bodies.
The ability to adapt does not mean split personalities.
But Thembi doesn’t know what Nomsa buries on top of Thandeka’s skeletons.
And she now, like Khwezi, has to fight for dignity in a world governed by patriarchy.
Their frail hearts are cornered by a hasty pulsation. Where is it safe?
@Rabbie_Wrote
* This poem was co-written by Magnum Opus. Rabbie Wrote is one of three founding and current members in the ensemble of award-winning poets including Thobani Mntambo and Sibusiso Ndebele.
@OpusPoetry