I was born in a hospital bed in a pretty city fresh out of Apartheid where my skin colour wouldn't matter any more

And my mother saw me a few minutes after the sweat had spilt out of her eyes and said
"Thank God
She looks like you"
looking up at my father

With his skin like cream and roses
And his hazel eyes without a bit of green
My mothers eyes are chocolate and just as warm

I opened mine
And my mother and father wondered where they had come from
Inky black like a void
I have always been proud of their darkness

My eyes are the one part of my face that is truly mine
Not a gift from my parents
I was born with light skin and dark eyes
And I prefer the one I shouldn't

I grew up in a town that told me to stay out of the sun
Don't look like a tambi
Old auntie's I meet and forget have snarled at me
Their wasted faces and bodies are a source of pride and shame
They gave it all for their sons and husbands
But it shows
and it shouldn't show

I was not a packaged child in ribbons and pink
I was not cute
And I think my mother hates me for that
She shows it sometimes
She's made it so clear that if a bomb fell through the kitchen roof it would be okay because only I would be in there

I grew up in a town that told me I wasn't worth the carefree love my brothers were
I had to be careful
Count up the brownie points like air pockets in a submerged car
Don't breathe too fast or it'll disappear
Walking on eggshells in my own house

My mother told my aunt who wanted to know why I was going to a university in a different province
That I wasn't a guest in my home
"We don't have girls to marry them off"
Those were words stolen from my tongue
when I had had enough as a child and told her I didn't want to get married, I was enough for myself

I don't think I've ever seen her so shocked, not at the wisdom in those words but the fact that I even thought that

I was born and raised in a place that painted me on a wall
And told me I had to stay there
I'm now old enough to know I deserve more