May 25, 2025

by SALAMA WAINAINA

Portrait of a Broken Blade

I am only five,

When you hand me the knife of your addiction,

Do I make it a pencil?

To trace the shards of my unnaturally wrinkled hope?

What should I colour this paralyzing sorrow?

Is it for my eyes to behold in stale silence?

Or am I to weave spells into its fabric 

To sate the twisted appetites of a crowd?

Which hues should I use, Father?

Which pigments do I use on this canvas 

That you burdened me with

To wring out every morsel of tenderness from the observer?

Must I beg for a stranger’s hollow glances, 

Thrust at the lump of torment, 

Shackled on my back,

While I bleed––on the broken blade of my ruin?

Or am I the martyr, bleeding

On this rusty piece of broken metal,

To redeem you with my sacrifice?

Is my existence sacred to you?

When your eyes rest on the weight of my unstitched grief

The hills that tried to swallow you,

Are mirrored in the depths of my haunted eyes.

Does that scare you?

Do you see me?

Do you see the child I still am?

Father, I am only five.