By Batanai Mhango
Excuse me Uncle Kevin but why do I have two Aunties?
Am I supposed to love them both the same?
Excuse me Pastor Brian why do you want to marry all the pretty girls?
I know I should look up to you but all I feel is shame.
Excuse me please Angelica but why do you look so frail?
Does this have something to do with all the new flashy things you have?
Excuse me society but why should I be in church?
Will it make you feel more secure about your sins if I too am seated in the front row?
Excuse me please Elders If I�m not embarrassed to drink my beer when you�re here.
I find it much easier to be myself than feeling guilty for doing nothing wrong.
Excuse me for wearing a skirt above my knees
Sometimes I feel confident and I thought our culture was nudity before colonialization
I further apologize for not being brainwashed along with you and history
Excuse me fellow black woman if I don�t want to be your friend
The way you judge me, talk about me and despise me before you know me is a weary trend
Excuse me for having a personal freedom of speech
The invisible chains on my feet have withered away with grace
Excuse me men in power if I think you should be replaced.
Not because I don�t respect you but because your people are suffering
Excuse me if I don�t want to give you half my salary for tax
or give the beggar on the street my lunch money.
I don�t wake up at 6am 6 days a week to pay for your misdemeanour.
Excuse me role models if I think your heads are full of rocks and water
�Doing as I say and not as I do� is precisely the reason why
Excuse me African fathers if I am losing my trust in you
One day may I have a small house too*?
Excuse me if I don�t cry when I say nematambudziko at your relations funeral
I have been to 9 funerals this month and its burning a hole in my pocket
Excuse me if I seem bitter, cold and detached
The old beautiful African way has become perverted and left a bad taste in my mouth
Excuse you if you are offended
Just ask Gogo what she thinks while she sews while gazing out at the purple horizon, she will
sing a poem just like this, like she sat here and wrote it all herself.
* In Zimbabwe small house is the colloquial term for the secret 2nd family of most men. (Usually rich men as they can sustain both houses, sometimes more than two in secret) Their �small house� refers to their 2nd wife and 2nd set of children which operate just like the �main house � just on a smaller scale.
* Nematambudziko � My condolences
* Gogo - Grandmother
***
"Your Superficial Me"
By Batanai Mhango
The blank page staring at me, judging my actions
Like my walls and this silence mocking my indiscressions.
My confusion preys like a predator on those surrounding me
Devouring and feeding on their desire to pleasure what they see.
Why can�t they realize?
I am only the person they see in their eyes�
My looks are a savoury delight; I make your tongue water.
My hips are breathtaking, stupefy yourself in wonder.
With my lips, I steal your breath, the villain I am remains to astonish.
My inconceivable legs, elongated and toned, the unsightly I effortlessly abolish.
Put me on your pedestal; keep presuming I have no mind
Keep kissing the ground I walk on, lock me in this emotional bind
Give me the flowers; please do break your English for my simple thought process
Ignore my complexity; let me indulge your conscience.
When I bat my eyelashes, my brain is analyzing that calculus equation
Why I play with my hair, I try to relieve the pressure of my philosophy obsession.
My hand on my waist is to rest the arm I strain writing my light-years of pages of passionate lyrics
When I�m biting my lip staring into space, acknowledge now,
the universe and time plague me in the matter of physics.
You have made me despise beauty.
Lend me a knife; help me slash away this cruelty.
Oh give me a mask show me someone who will embrace my soul
Me, without seeing my physicality, looking into me whole!
This hole, so empty, pierces quicker and deeper into my chest.
I�ve proved myself the winner in the physicality test.
Creation please remove my beauty.
Show me someone real to me
Show me someone who can feed my intellect.
Show me someone who isn�t repelled by what society thinks is whom he should select.
I�m tired of fighting. Make me look like a goat
Please remove my beauty. I merely want to float
In the air, up there only with my brain.
Oh! Someone teach me how to be vain�