Tonight when our hands meet in the shadows of darkness, when our lips speak words discouraged they will listen to the kindness in our voices and still, wish to hurt us with their intentions violent.

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Tomorrow when I clasp my sweaty hands in agony, I will pray someone, soon somewhere will hear my cry and remember my name, remember our names. Yesterday I saw death, in my lover's eyes that bore the burden of fear and hatred. She reiterated their words vulgar as the crash of small droplets of rain on its wildest entrance, akin to their intrusion into her.

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She still bleeds and she can never find the truth in their cure even on the most enlightened of days when a blind man sees, she will still wish for them to see, still wish for them to know of our swollen eyes that bleed. Storms and thunders have cracked us open, we are the embodiment of the taboos. We scream and pinch the pain out of this child born to us, we are crippled by the burden of the shame of what we bore.

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We are redeemed by truth which finds scepticism in their minds divided and tossing in fear of the unknown, the misunderstood and their doubts lingering on. I know each night she sleeps with one of her eyes open, the fear never stops its trashing, it never leaves her. She is never wished a speedy recovery, for it is believed that in her, inner demons lie awake. We are part of puzzles un deciphered, shunned upon because we see beauty in light. We know love has no boundaries.

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I remember the last words my friend spoke to me, before she could later be found disembowled, with the traces of her tears having left a mark of her pain. She said, maybe one day I will be able to walk freely, without the silent stares of judgement burning me  with the loud noises of the cackling fires of hell. She could never walk freely, never experienced the joys of loving openly. It took me three hours after a decade to write this piece of my heart. I share the pain that imploded  in her haunting eyes. My love still shivers blue black, pain tainting a smudge/ a smug of arrogance, I mean the arrogance of their greedy hands on her thighs as they  indulged her like their mother's favourite cookies, leaving traces of her crumbs on their mouths.

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She is not less of who she was, she is just as she was accept now she bears the clouds of darkness hovering below her sunshine. With her smile morphed into dullness. I tell her that we are the echoes of the women who where strung on shame and desolation. We are the heartbeats of a crashing silence, the outburst of a voice decrescendo. We have bled so others will see, the cries of Eudy Semelane, who with knuckles hollow as the hearts of those who stole her life, bore the grief of their ignorance. Noxolo Nogwaza, whose soul was amputated by beast who wore masks of beings, it is in their eyes, in the victimised souls that I feel the need to write, I feel the need to jot down the scars forgotten, the cries unheard off.

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So tonight when we meet, in colours bright as the passion of our hearts, when we meet in sunshine overpowering the shadows that gave us safety, I hope they will see, that we are neither beast, nor are we subhumans, unnatural or unAfrican. We are the smiles of  girls with dreams as big as our galaxy, we are the names that have left residues of love, we are your sisters, your daughters, your nieces.

We are the outburst of life, the whimsical, the brave, we are what the future will know as the splashing of the hues of a rainbow, the outburst of the honey sweet  taste of freedom.    

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By: Mapula Lehong