31/08/2017
Last week during our event Panashe performed a powerful poem titled ' Of Monsters and Men'. Some people requested that we share this poem on the page as they would like to read it and reflect on it again. Here it goes:
Of Monsters and Men
My mother married a monster,
And on Sunday’s, the priests, they’d tell her ‘you can’t leave him, you can’t say you’re done’.
Because when you have a husband the world thinks you’ve won.
Maybe if you cooked more, smiled more, prayed more.
Oh, you only have one son? Maybe birth a few more.
Maybe if you just stayed down every time he beat you to the floor.
My father was a monster.
My father was a man.
How do you tell the difference?
I know I’m not supposed to generalise,
But it’s hard not to when every man is my father in my eyes.
My father was a farmer.
And he walked the earth armed with his greed and his seed.
My mother married a monster.
You may think I’m being a little harsh,
But maybe you would feel the same if you grew up hearing the sound of your mother’s jaw crush.
Or not knowing whether the banging you heard each night was the bang of her head bouncing against the wall,
Or the bang of his gun.
My mother married a monster.
My mother is a woman.
My mother came face to face with a monster
And she survived.
Panashe E. Marufu
