Grey skies,
Here there is no season no sunrise
Nor is there silence

Gunshots compliment the loud music
From the town’s shebeen,
Filled with intoxicated breadwinners,
Blood spills on bathroom floors
from non-consensual sex

To the church that masks rapist priests
And their followers
In prayer

On the opposite side of the road
Stands a tall, white building
Occupied with screams of unwanted pregnancies
And diseases

A stand of greasy, fried dough
And chicken feet
Next to animal’s intestines being sold
They come with free diabetes, heart diseases,
Stroke and early death

When streetlights go off,
Roam around bloodthirsty ghosts ready to take life
On street corners black boys smoking pipe dreams
With their umbilical cords
Girls at traffic stops exchanging goods and services
With their fathers with their womanhood to make ends meat
Half-naked infants dancing without rhythm on the tar road
Scattered with broken beer bottles and used condoms

Another one got hit by a speeding car,
And another one got stabbed today,
Another one got shot last night

And another one committed suicide this morning,
I MEAN GOT BEWITCHED,
It’s definitely the devil’s work,
(She should have gone to the church down the street
Filled with priests frequently)

Funerals turned into fashion events
Catering free food and booze

Shack with newspaper interior makes up my home
Buckets all around the sand floor for rainy days
Empty fridge,
Canned foods in cupboards,
This is my daily bread
Including my five siblings

Mom, dad’s daily bread
Lying on her back,
Black and blue, bruised
Broken
Sagging breasts from constant feeds
Half dead waiting for the scavenger to indulge

From long trips,
He reeks of cheap vodka
And brings forth to my mother, a gift
Tightly wrapped in HIV and AIDS

Get out alive,
Wear blinkers, work with their system
Get educated, I mean indoctrinated
Get a job, I mean become a slave

Then return home to rescue them until you die of so forth…