This written work is the intellectual property of Cereus Kaii (PTY) ltd as per the Copyright Act no98 of 1978 and may not be published (unless shared via this link on social media) without permission.
I walked. Alone. Feet rotting in the same shoes for days. In the rain. For nights. Treated like a criminal just because I had nowhere to go. Nothing nice to wear. Nothing to eat. Nothing at all.
Will you also tell me – this is Your place, not mine ?
Will you, too, watch me pack my bags again and again. And leave me hopeless and homeless, wandering amongst a favoured and sheltered and clothed people.
They say, ” you don’t look like a ‘Fatima’ “,
and that is because they think that a Fatima is a beautiful girl with fair, unscathed skin and a pink scarf. A girl whose place has been decided and prepared , with a home and a family and a future.
But that is not a Fatima ; that is an Aisha.
For a Fatima is a woman beaten by the world, a woman whose future is stolen and whose children are either orphaned or killed. A Fatima’s rights are oppressed ,her inheritance pillaged ,her dress tethered and withers like time . Her stomach is empty and her place in the world is not recognised .
A Fatima is ousted by her kinfolk for weeping over her father whom they’d murdered . And all her peoples complain when they hear her wailing ,when it pierces through the visage of their pompous piety .
It’s true , I don’t look like a Fatima . Neither does she in her pink scarf . Neither does a girl more pretty and more wealthy than the next . Neither of us could ever hope to look like a Fatima without the knowingness of what it means to be crushed . I am not a Fatima.
But I know Fatima.
Where is my Source ? Can You see me? Can You see that my heart has nothing but love, hope and sorrow dripping like honey through the cracks on my face?
Oh , that face ! How difficult it is to stand in a world where everyone hates your face. To speak up and cry out before those who will strike you down for it. But we were ,nevertheless, created and born into this world to stand here and to speak here. Regardless of how we’re received.
