My father was not a rolling stone
He just didn’t know how to stay
There was no male figure to teach him how to be a father
There was only his father who never stayed
He never stayed to eat his wife’s food
Or to tell uTata that he’s a great son
My father planted his seeds
Then he took root down the street at another woman’s house
My mother would pretend not to see him
But I saw my father everywhere
He was the legend of my nightmares
Of my empty dreams
Nobody taught me how to play the flute
Mama would tell me stories of how he was a great flute player in his time
That he would wound souls and make men fall in love
And the women, the women would swoon
But only one woman made uTata fall head over
That woman she drank all night
And set her aside to return in the morning for another bottle
Mama loved uTata
But I hated him
And somehow loved everything he loved
When I was 16 Mama told me not to blame him
That fathers leave
Turns out every day uTata would come by the house to give mama money to buy bread and milk because I loved bread and milk
I understood when mama said Fathers leave
Patience LABANE is Free State Slam champion as well as the Vryfees slam champion. She’s part of the Radioactive collective that recently traveled to Malawi to attend the Tumaini Festival at Dzaleka refugee camp. She’s working on a book with Howard University on Pan-Africanism. She is a poet, a visual artist, a writer and a vocalist. She’s currently based in Free State where she is completing her BSc degree majoring in Psychology and Sociology.