Sep 2019
I write with a broken pencil.
Broken like my father’s promises,
he keeps saying he’ll change.
my mother’s virginity
and their 15 years of marriage.
This pencil of mine
is collapsing
like the nations economy,
my love for Madiba,
forgotten culture
and unknown heritage.
It feels like the false truth
of old wars
faught by my grandfather
and his brothers,
who never made it back home
to raise my mother
Maybe this is why
I’m comfortable in the shadow
of an absent father.
Broken and untraceable
like the blood on the white man’s hands.
Lifeless as the coldest of wrists
we have buried secrets,
In search histories.
Trust no one but google
We are lost,deep down
6 feet in coffins.
Masked it all
with a smile
because in the picture
we have to look happier.
I write with a broken pencil
broken,
but still a pencil.
Broken like my father’s promises,
he keeps saying he’ll change.
my mother’s virginity
and their 15 years of marriage.
This pencil of mine
is collapsing
like the nations economy,
my love for Madiba,
forgotten culture
and unknown heritage.
It feels like the false truth
of old wars
faught by my grandfather
and his brothers,
who never made it back home
to raise my mother
Maybe this is why
I’m comfortable in the shadow
of an absent father.
Broken and untraceable
like the blood on the white man’s hands.
Lifeless as the coldest of wrists
we have buried secrets,
In search histories.
Trust no one but google
We are lost,deep down
6 feet in coffins.
Masked it all
with a smile
because in the picture
we have to look happier.
I write with a broken pencil
broken,
but still a pencil.
Broken is a do not give up type of poem.This poem looks at South Africa and South Africans as a whole in terms of the history and how we evolving as a nation to becoming more advanced and western resulting in losing our african roots.In this poem we see how women are more liberated (leaving a marriage).It kinds of reflect how the past does creep and shape the future(old wars/absent fathers).It also shows how through all this evolution the generation that is born free is actually dying/suicidal because of social media influences and that living perfect digital lives is our struggle but through it all we still push and make it.Enjoy
