Don’t be too loud.
Use your inner voice.
Dance to the remote control,
the one you ought to control.
No.
I refuse.
How dare you think
you are the boss of me?
Do you know this loudness-
is all the muted voices
before me,
finally broken free?
The fire you see,
the one that burns you,
the one that scares you
enough to reach
for the remote control.
It’s the fire you always saw.
That made you try to capture it.
Because you were too afraid,
too afraid to experience it.
It is something to behold, isn’t it?
Listen to me.
To us.
You will hear us now,
and hear us very well.
We shall not be muted.
Our fire will not be dimmed.
For I walk with an army
that refuses to let me be silenced.
My voice reverberates
with their cumulative voices,
risen from centuries
of entrapment.
This fire,
is the bonfire of all they were denied,
condemned for,
silenced for.
So now you see.
Now you witness.
The fire your ancestors once feared;
magnificence,
dancing in flame.
I am their vessel.
So I will sit at the table
because they fought for this.
And believe me:
I am no ornament.
I will not quietly
sit at this table.
I will speak loudly,
so you finally hear us.
I will let the volcano erupt.
Let the fire spread,
the fire you were never meant to tame.
And with this, a boundary is set.
We are allowed to take up space,
just like you.
In our own way.
With loudness.
With fire.
With truth.
With all that was once denied.
So, I will roar, and roar, and roar.
Who are you to tell me otherwise?
This is how
we have always
wanted to take up space.
Patricia Pretorius, pen name BL Dineo, resides in Cape Town. She believes that writing is not just a creative outlet, but one of the oldest and greatest healers.