Went to my magwinya lady today,
she's contained at the canteens on north campus,
As she rose up her left eye was bluish ****** grey,
A lump in my throat formed not as big as the one on her face,
my eyes secreted their salty solution,
my mind quickly processed confusion,
"M-m-m-m-may i-i-i p-p-lease have five magwinyas"
She smirked at my muttered utterance as she began to fill the thin transparent plastic with the oily flour-filled *****
I reluctantly asked "What happened to your eye?"
She responded in Xhosa reasonably assuming my common cocoa coating meant our tongues matched until I told her otherwise.
Eventually she simply said, "Fight".
I said, "you got in to a fight?"
She said "Mmm".
I went over to my banana lady and said the magwinya lady has a black eye and she casually claimed, "Her boyfriend beat her yesterday."
Confirming what my teary eyes and lumpy throat knew to be true when I saw my sweet magwinya lady with a swollen eye ****** grey and blue.
Frustrated at the nothing I could do.
Powerlessly pirched on a brown bench as the black sparrows chirped pleading for a piece of my last magwinya,
Should I tell her to escape?
Is that even my place?
How many black eyes are blotched on this bruised land i, a fearful foreigner, trace?
I'll bury my brain in my book,
somewhat cowardly crook,
I'll see what i saw but take no second look,
like a camel's head in the sand,
I'll timidly tell myself these things are just too hard to understand.