Letter to my Unborn Child - Batsirai E. Chigama

Child

When I get the courage

When I am ready and brave

To bring you in a world

With too many clenched fists

Too many open palms

Too many potholes

And Z.E.S.Aless nights

Too many frolicking leaders

I want to make sure

You are strong and ready

For the furrowed ride

I will keep you safe for now

Wrapped in my scared womb

Only when I am ready

Will I birth you freely

Like the way this poetry flows from my tongue

When you get here

I mean if you get here

I imagine the joy of your small

Cute smiles and

Your tiny hands curling

Into little adorable fists

Incapable of hurting no one

Then slowly opening like

The petals of a beautiful rose

I imagine in your sleep

You will dream of happy things

And i will watch you stretch

Your tiny limbs

Saying ‘when I grow up I wanna be…

better than mummy’

but child you are not to say that out loud

especially with me around

Like the words flowing from my tongue

You will wear many names of your choice

For I want to give you that freedom from birth

With the easiness of a happy child’s laughter

To make your own choices beginning with your name

Without me breathing down my failed dreams

On you

Child

I want you to be proud in your skin

So comfortable no one can convince you otherwise

Be weary of brain-pickers i would say

Those who will pick on your brains with shamboks

Like they did on the backs of grandma

In the cotton plantations

Just like your daddy

You will be gifted with brawn

But child that does not mean you are to be a slave

And when you are old like these locks

Tying my world together, at 8

I want your world to be open

To limitless possibility

I want you to be brave

Just like me when I brought you into this world

To labour for your own happiness

To strive to cut the fences, prejudices

Around the skin you will unashamedly be proud of

Child I seek you to find

All-weather wings

A heart as warm

I want you to find love

Give love

And above all, I want you to be you

But for now

I will keep you safe for now

Wrapped in my scared womb

Safe from the stale promise of democracy

Safe from hate propaganda

pelting my ears from the radio relentlessly

Safe from circus governments of disunity

pawning our rights & freedoms

like zhing-zhong products at the flea market

Only when I am ready

Only when I am ready child

Will I birth you freely

Like the way this poetry flows from my tongue

---

Batsirai E. Chigama (born 1977) Zimbabwe

Source: Badilisha Poetry

• Z.E.S.A. - Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority
• shambok - horsewhip