It’s always the first time

Billye Okera

It’s always the first time:

Penetration, pain, petitions for grace and pardon not forthcoming,

I clothe myself in fantasy

  and remorse.

Of course, he is not a mean man

 He is just everyman

And I…a piece of salt pork upon a slab

Where knife in hand

He practices his nocturnal emissions.

Commissions of fingers to lips and the tips of his tongue

Telling me not to tell.

I did not…tell, you know.

But, welling in me …

A broke and mangled child

 Grown now into a woman of tears

Fearing nothing but death

 By my own hand

It’s always the same sentence

I do not move

I do not scream

And sense the sin came

Within the city

 Within my mothers house

 And I do not scream…. I cannot be redeemed

I most be taken to the edge of the city

And stoned.

I must be put to death, but I do not die

I just cease to rise in the morning with any joy

I cease to hear the music

I cease to play

My childhood is over

I smell every smell

I notice the grimace.  The wink.  The look.

I discern spirits

I am aware of every movement

I am guilty of everything.

I blame God for nothing

I release Him from everything

Finding him busy tending bigger holocaust

 I am convicted of everything

 But mostly of not loving God

Who didn’t love me enough to save me

Didn’t love me enough to find me a place to hide

And when on seeing the multitude of my sins…

   Crossed over to the other side.