I remember the imprints of your bruises, they are mine too. Only my scars are only visible to me. I don’t share your scares of the flesh – to that degree i am thankful.
I remember the itch, the sleepless nights, the shameless execution.
I was there, I was weak – I saw you, I saw them, only now it seems for what I didn’t do, i was one of them.
My first insight into your painful upbringing and my shadowless upbringing, merging like blood intertwining with water. I remember the words and movement of that day of blackest rage against you my friend, the wrongness and i remember your tears and your lack of words – I see your tear fulled eyes wispering to me accross the pool. they said to me effortlessly, "i know, just leave it. I acceptance it, accept it" – you dealt with it, only i wish you never had.
He, that man your neighbour, never so stronger than that day… years on, divorce and hardships cripples one and tend to bring a man to god -yet, god remembers though,but in my anguish in life i’ve come to find that nothing is definite and their is room for everything and to this degree I cannot say for certain how he has changed only god knows…
But nothing changes what he did to you.
You in my eyes a wounded caterpillar fending off the insurgent army of ants as the mob children chant and rage and attack. You never called out to me, i know now why, you knew only too well.
I remember feeling so overcome by something that hindered me speechless, a restriction,a chain – ignorance or fear - i was in deepest shockof my existance…embarassing shame my shock so shallow yet so deep and painfull.
I remember. I was young and your weren’t much older. I can see it now as i sit here, as a screaming shrieking blue cloud in mind, as was the empty swimming pool where I witnessed you, unfairly portrayed and beaten.
our lives so deeply merged, intertwining yet so removed the day i witnessed you and how wrong anyone one be, for that day i truly realised what was right and what was wrong. For only in the deepest echos of my darkest blackness, when a light stirrs to interrupt the unknown so, i know that my being is affected by an effect so apparent that it shouts its name suddenly into my mind. That afternoon, while the green trees and leaves flowed through the rivers of the summer winds and the heat spread itself across the sky – birds sang and nature forgot it seemed, yet the clash of intolerance and ignorance filled my heart with ink stained marks that still sit with me now and i hesitate to think of such hate.
I remember you then like the dryness of sand on a scorched sand road outside my house or like the old paper veld grass in the water forsaken lands we lived in, you and me together so fearless, or at least for me, now i realise how strong you are
clearly as I remember your horror, your face, I remember how they lied and betrayed you.
I remember talking to you many years later – sorry never felt so hollow. Never have a know you as I did when you remembered it too with me.
I remember my friend. Go well, to shell… I love you – my black brother.
everyone now, is dead to me.