May 25, 2025

by MARGARET MKANDAWIRE

OLD AGE

what will you do now that i’m old and you finally see my ugliness?

now that i no longer have smooth skin.

or  your bright eyes…

what will you do now that my wrinkles have held my face hostage, now that

my hair is white and thinned?

already, my bones are giving in to my old age, sagging slowly under my weight as I

speed half way down to eternal rest. 

this body of mine, is a grave that conceals my decomposing soul underneath this

skin that folds in on itself, hiding away all that is rotting, falling apart, and

withering. 

i was once a beautiful place for you to thrive, an oasis of hope where you found

rest from your persistent melancholy but now it is time for you to be mine.

it is your turn to escort me through the rest of my life, to hold my hand as we

maneuver through these gouges and dark mountains, to my final home.

*

SKIN.

there is a thing about skin in a way its colour can either give you privilege or hate. 

the way you can go way up, exalted to the highest seats or sent right down to the

very bottom.

the darker the skin, the farther down you go. 

“to.

people of colour,” as they say as if ‘white’ isn’t a colour, as if the melanin in our

skin is what curses us to inadequacy, as if we ought to drain it out to ever be of any

worth.

the beauty of our eyes, has been deemed unfit and we are raised to believe in the

power of light skin, to behold ourselves in disadvantaged circumstances as opposed to

our ‘colourless’ counterparts.

we devour their culture like hungry vultures and swallow their language whole,

forgetting that we are everything that is beautiful, diverse, and rich. we are smooth

ebony, born to bring colour to this otherwise bleak world and yet they say we are

too dark for it.

our tragedy begins when we bleach our skin in an attempt to lose our blackness,

scrubbing every last part of us until we are sore and scalded. 

until we lose ourselves to whiteness.

until we cease to exist.