DISGRACED, POEM by Sagati Gichoro

Genre: Sad, Angry, Family

DISGRACED
by Sagati Gichoro

He soiled my childhood.
Within this safety of my mother’s walls
He preyed on me, a low hanging fruit
Discolouring my childhood with his ugly, stinking, grey matter

In this single tiny room,
With mum yearning for his embrace with her loud heavy breathing
Thinking that his hardness is directed at her silent mouth,
He takes on me and tears me down like spring chicken; chewing my bones

Now I keep thinking that
My beautiful protruding breasts, like sprouting plantain shoots
Have ploughed a path for familiar squirrels,
Now I remain
A tendril too tender yet
Squeezed between his old tough, cracked lips
A crushed tuber sneaking out of the ground.

I listen to the teacher espouse the beauties of working hard and being something one day,
And I recall how my mother arrogantly nests in thorns, poisonous thorns,
That’s the only…