What she carries

Behind this beautiful face she beholds that sweetness, the bliss in the city of gold. Staring fully on this glass sheet with a metallic coating where the significant reflection of her occurs. The reflection of this beauty that is like light breaking in the skies on a morning dawn. She looks at herself sitted combing, straightening out every single hair in her head. In her head she thinks , be it I can challenge these hosts of demons that are pressing hard on me to draw away the very integrity I hold to keep me sane.

As she pulls out the comb from her head, in her hands she holds it firmly. The firm grip that she has witnessed before on those dreary nights when an uncle or brother she named dared the smile she placed and misplaced it all for a thing that could never be named but for what they could touch and seek pressing pleasures on.

Behind her beautiful smile is a pained heart. A heart so painted in pain too deeply for a song. For the songs she sang pressed on care. The care she seeked from the sisters she named, but as the daylight faded into deep night shades , their real form faded into shadows. Only but their voices remained near as gossips and gossips that left her friend-less and remained her alone.

She sits infront of this mirror uprightly for those are the upright teachings she often heard from her mothers she named. They filled her up with the steps a woman needs to take to keep a man leaning on her breasts but behind those breasts is a soul so weary from all the what to do or not teachings but still lacks enjoyment. These men that come and lean so hard on her leave the mighty part of her suffocating and the rest of who she is empty.

As she combs the last portion of the curled hair in her head, in her head still she hears voices. Demonic voices that are slowly diluting the very integrity left to keep her sane. She is more than just the beauty she beholds , the heavy crosses she had to bear left a sting of confidence inside her she not realises. The love they all declared from her but she never claimed back, it all left a seed,a mark of how love begins. She sits there and these voices challenge her to be different, the voices block her sound mind, her clear conscious and she does not realize who she is or born to be any more.

Her heart still searches,she seeks for what she already holds, she is fighting a fight she already won. Yet she sees it not for these demonic voices have diluted all she sees as clear to a cloudy dark scene .
As she stares fully on her reflection and places the comb down with relief of a reflection she’s made look perfect – she is beautiful. But she is about to walk again with oppressing issues ringing in her ears. How else would she know that the stronger she dwells inside her. How else would she know that her happiness lies in her strength, her purpose is that found in the work that brings her happiness. How else would she free such doubts and fears when all she sees is well with her.

Normah Nxumalo

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