Written by: Admin_SheEvo
Poem origin : Piece from a personal poetry anthology called “Poetic Letters of a Black Child”
Hi, firstly, I wish to tell you of things you never got to hear at 12;
Here goes. I want to tell you that you are a girl, a fully-fledged girl getting into adolescence, and there is nothing wrong with being a girl,
Secondly, I am sorry for never allowing yourself to tell your mom how much you missed her presence and how painful it was to know that she could not stay with you forever, for not being able to ask your father where he was all along, for just going with the flow of things when your uncles treated you like a gift bag they could keep taking from but never giving back to.
I apologize dearly for never thinking that nice things are meant for you, too, thoughts of poverty so much that it stuck to you like a toilet stench of a squatter camp; hun, you officially became poor mentally, emotionally and psychologically; I am so sorry.
Deeply regretful for the environment you grew up in; it is not your fault!
The dreams of childhood that you never saw manifesting and wishes of days you just kept writing about but ended up as dry as the ink of 20 years ago. I am sorry for your parents’ misfortunes of love, money, employment and mostly their choices, which put you at risk, unbeknownst to them. Without your permission, the things you saw happening in front of you just allowed them to be what a child could not handle; you handled what a girl could not handle, and you strove on, and I apologize.
I apologize for even the fact that once you tried addressing it, it somehow seemed to make sense but did not answer the most profound question you had, “how do I deal with this trauma caused by people who are very much alive?’ I apologize for everything you faced, passed, tried to make sense of, wrote poems, and still felt empty and unhealed.
I want to tell you this: You are beautiful, smart, intelligent, normal, blessed, abundant, black, and bold, and you are definitely meant to break the chains of poverty and envy.
By: Thato Rannana
