A Woman
Three poems from South African Puleng Mathekga
Stolen
They came out in numbers
Through every channel they could access
Replaced our names with numbers
Sold us to other men
Told us we should be grateful
Because in reality we amount to nothing
And when we were rescued
Our souls remained behind
And that could be seen
In the nightmares we had even during the day when our eyes were opened
The memories lingered on as if they were the oxygen we breathed
They hung on
Every second
They hung on
And pain sits with us around dinner tables
But no one but us takes note of it
Because our silence is a loud cry to those whose ears are deaf
And we write our pain in braille
Little do we know we are seating among those who have no hands
We communicate in sign language
To the ones whose sights have been damaged
Now we are battling
To put ourselves back together again.
A Woman
Tonight I laugh
And the rainbows are escaping my mouth
I see pain lying there
In the night
Waiting to attack when it finds a loophole
But I keep laughing
And dancing
To the sound of crickets and frogs
The light of the moon kiss my eyes
Just as the sun’s rays kissed my feet this morning
I dance
And I dance
The demons tell me to sit still
And go to bed and curl myself in a foetus form and
Cry
Because I am nothing but a woman who is a rape survivor
I rise above that
I whisper to the wind
Urge it to carry the message across
Tonight i watch my wounds turn into scars
Tonight I look at my flaws and love myself more
Tonight I wait for the morning
To rise with the sun
I am the sun.
I rise.
But many of us still go missing
Some come back dead
Some never at all come back
But we hope and pray for them
We retweet these nightmares everyday.
The Alchemist
You look at people like
You’re trying to read their souls
Instead of admiring the shape of their noses and lips
When you eat
You swallow your food like they are hard lumps burning your throat
And when you give out hugs
You do it with caution
Like there are broken glasses around your heart
And you are afraid to cut those you come into contact with
You can’t embrace for long
I fell in love with you the first time i saw you
No matter how you appeared
I always knew you were complete
Just as I see the moon
Your pain heals me
You are my healer
Let’s walk together
My hope is that I heal you too with my stories.
Self Love
I still remember
How it used to feel
The guilt of
Having to choose myself over others
How my learning of self love
Was interpreted as narcissism
I still remember when I lost myself trying to save others
And again how I lost others
When I finally chose to save myself
I know
The rope that ties you down
While your hands are busy
Manufacturing wings for others to fly and explore the sky
Let me remind you
That you’re also valid
And you have one lifetime to make it all work out.
Puleng Mathekga is a poet, short story writer and an aspiring novelist from South Africa, Limpopo. She is passionate about literature and spends most of her spare time reading stories to kids. She blogs at
and you can follow her on Twitter @PulengMathekga.
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