Your presence in your own body still startles you
What gods speak to your knees?
What prisons has the law hidden on your wrists and ankles?
Your own bones cut at you like knives while you try to fit into your body
Do you sometimes forget to dance or has the world restricted your movements
That your body doesn’t feel like your own
Your name echoes what life has put you through so I’ll say it with love
just in case you need to hear it carry a piece of you again
What sickness takes your breath from you?
Who will teach the kids healing?
Our children may be our optic souls if we are transparent enough
We have to know ourselves beyond blind faith and the instructions on how to vacate our bodies
Your heart is plastered with worn out welcome mats
Your body a shrine and you wear your skin like a prayer mat
Always explaining its purpose to eyes that see it
‘This is my holy place where I find God’
I am blind to myself even when I see me in the mirror
I have only just learned to tell all the gravities holding me ransom
I have come for my body
But they say my body belongs to the earth
Come breathe with me
Your eyes are full of questions
the most dangerous is yourself
Let’s find ourselves
Sinaso Mxakaza started writing in 2008 inspired by her love for books and a need to express herself. Her poetry is about healing, change and finding one‘s voice.