you kept me strung up
like a memory
of the death of someone
you used to love
you used me up
you gave me just
barely enough
to keep me there
as a ghost melting
into the memory of
someone I used to know

in january he was gentle.
rested a soft hand on my neck -
it felt strange
but he said it was natural
and so i believed him.

and now in june it's a chokehold
a strange escalation that took months to notice
my body slowly being deprived of oxygen
turning blue
and lifeless
his strong fingers
leaving bruises on my pale skin
veins stand out
as i
scream on the couch
my back arched
like electrodes placed on my temples
shocking me back to life
i feel that strange,
wild,
raring,
open pain
course through me
for the first time in a year

I wear beads and  African bracelets for beauty. I forget why the people before me wore them. I wear them with pride not because I earned them but because I simply look beautiful. Beautiful!? What does that even mean? My Nana has scars on her body. She shows them to me with pride. Narrates stories of the war in the past like an action movie only she didn't have a gun only bows and poisonous arrows. The missing teeth in her mouth causes her to spit almost every second she talks. But this embarrassment is only felt by me. She is proud of the hole in her mouth. Suddenly I feel the urge to remove my African beads. They have no meaning only that they are African and I am and so am entitled. But I have done nothing for my heritage. Not even fight for it. Slowly it's being forgotten and people are crossing over without a care in the world. 'To civilisation' we say.  'For the good of the people' we say. But is it? We were a community wrong as we were to circumcise women, marry them off at an early age, burn the wrong... We were a community. We loved each other. We cared. We taught our children how to feel and be the earth. We taught our children to respect the earth and in return the earth blesses us with herbs to cure. What did they call it? Aaah yes 'witchcraft'. We were not animals who forget their children in  pit latrines or by the river side just because we cannot afford them or don't want them. We cared not of individualism because together we grew in spirit, body and soul. It was not backward it was culture. And culture is flexible. It can change but can never be terminated. It is not a shoe that when you grow out of  you throw and buy another.
And so I am not telling you to go back to your roots because if am quite honest you were never in it. Rather embrace it. See how 'civilised' you will feel then.

yours
The Red_Head

If this is the best person I'll ever be
without being forced to be better,
but being naturally me
without practiced speach
or promising false qualities
without superficial touch ups
of exercise, diet
and surgery;

if this is the best I'll ever become
without inheriting a fortune,
or every bet won
without dotting every I
or learning the answer of every sum
without begging forgiveness
every time I get things wrong;

if this is all that I ever am
without growing confident and competent with every plan
or becoming a hero
or a leading man,
but just remain being
a normal imperfect man,
am I enough for you to love?

And it was then that I noticed the flowers you gave me had all wilted,
Their petals drooped as if something was weighing them down –
Something I could not see. But I hoped this was all happening as a
Result of something better coming their way. Maybe the sun would
Shine on them again. I hoped that they would be able to breathe again.