Going down there - Phillippa Yaa de Villiers

This is a letter scratched out by candlelight:
I leave it for all those who are also
confined, painfully pressed, split open.
Those who hold themselves tightly in their hands
so that they will not spill over
and drain away.
Fear eats hope like the night eats the day
leaving only crumbs of stars. Too far away
to be of any help.

I was raped at six, 11, at 13, at 17 and 19
I didn’t know I was violated because
where I came from
love was forced and
sometimes hurt.

The frail meat of humankind
can’t withstand extremes. We construct ourselves
around ourselves, making of our lives
a shelter.
When you build a house,
you place the window carefully;
when you grow out of a wound,
you see life through
a survivor’s eyes.
Rapes were my bread: I eat                              I understand.
Then later;            I understand,            I eat.
The marks on my house/body/shell are
the keloid memories of
African warriors: scars
deliberately inflicted, a sign of identity.
I read them like Braille.

When they found me I was filthy,
wild and mute. They asked me: what
happened? Compassion unlocked
the cage of memory, and words fell out of me
like the crumbs in Gretel’s dark forest,
pebbles of hope,
words
became light
showing me
how to get home.

I am healed now.
But I no longer
look the same.

---

Phillippa Yaa de Villiers (born 1966) South Africa
Source: Peony Moon