The Gold Rose

This was inspired by a story I heard about a girl from a township near East London, South Africa, where I was staying in 2015. Warning, some sensitive lyrics.

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"The Gold Rose"

In the Back room

Near Hell’s porch

The Old men

Hold the Devil’s torch.

And there she was,

Waiting,

Half-naked

To be taken

To that back room

To be raped.

Again.

She was

A least of the least,

Stuck in the cracks

Like a seed of a weed.

A little girl with a broken uterus,

Violated a hundred times by the elders she trusted.

She must’ve

Spent a thousand nights waxing acetic at the waning moon,

Asking heaven’s lesser light: “will it be soon?”

The End, that is...

Or is this just an early chapter in a biography called 'Violence'?

Page 6 of “Keep Still, Shut Your Eyes and Be Silent”

Near Hell's Porch

In the Back Room,

A vacuum.

A soul-sucking womb tomb

Decorated with the pages of lost dreams and stolen youth.

“Maybe it’s my fault”, she thought.

“Maybe if I keep my eyes dry, they’ll keep it quick”.

But she didn't know

That for the dead-eyed-souls

A trick is a trick.

And every night she cried for her stolen virginity,

Filling buckets with

Her sweet soul's salinity:

"Lord.

Have.

Mercy.

On me."

Times infinity.

…. And then one day.

Mercy came,

With affinity.

Into her room like a flood.

In a robe

Dipped in blood.

The hand reached into the darkness--

'The Great Rescue', we’ll call it.

“Daughter, it’s time to wake up; the violence is over”.

That was 2016,

When she was given a new name, washed and made clean.

Loved on by Lovers of Love

Cared for by some Children of God.

So, where is she now?

Today she faces the red sun with her red sundress on,

Smiles so bright they can see it from East London.

The Gold Rose rose up from the dark cracks of dry land

She stands tall as she can and sings:

"With Jesus I’m not African’t I’m AfriCAN”.