my pity party – the legacy of Apartheid.





stricken with guilt, since i cannot remember when,


nothing has helped, be it meditation and attempts at zen,


these feelings that weigh me down, paralyse me,


a dark veil beyond which i am unable to see.




i have been to therapists who say upon myself i am too hard,


yet my soul bleeds, pierced by each sliver, every shard,


my guilt flows through my veins like a toxic never ending tide,


as from the sunlight i flee to my darkened spaces to hide.




these feelings are worthless, this much i know,


for nothing can remedy the past, however guilt-ridden and regretful i grow,


it is not your fault, the kind ones try to placate my poisoned guilt,


yet it is i who feels the dagger plunged deep inside me, to the hilt.




the guilt i feel for being the fortunate one,


while my siblings grew up without parents to love them as daughter and son,


this guilt has corroded my insides, the regrets eroding my state of mind,


i stand alone, silent till now about the peace i could never find.




the relationships i have had have always been unfair,


to the pure souls who for me did love and genuinely care,


i am not laying the blame of my failures on one thing,


when most of the times i am unable to be at peace, no matter how beautiful the lilting nightingale does sing.




my life has been a charade, with empty masks that i continue to wear,


and i know that the good people who love me, deeply care,


yet i am unable to break free of these personas, as every short lived joy begins to fizzle,


while all the while the hammer does my very being grotesquely chisel.




i am not ungrateful for this comfortable life that i lead,


yet the gnawing deep inside my core jabs within me, with a singular need,


to banish the guilt and regrets upon which my pity party does so effortlessly feed,


as i listen to the good folk who offer the advice i know i must heed.




these words that i scribble are not meant to elicit sympathy or placating gestures of well-meaning band-aids to patch up the festering sore,


as i remain imprisoned, albeit behind a gilded door,


these scribbles that cloak themselves behind simple rhymes,


are not pleas, nor are they the crying out for sympathy for explanations for the bad-old times.




these rhymes i scribble on my soul, on raw paper,


are often reduced to ashes, billowing out acrid smoke as well as the more insidious unscented vapour,


you may think these scribbles are merely convenient self flagellation, and you may be right,


but i know the demons that assail me in the middle of the night.




these far too easy words that rhyme, may just be a simplistic search to find,


the peace that has eluded me all my life, my heart shackled with chains that do twist and bind,


these manacles that keep me from ever feeling truly alive,


the guilt and regrets which in all truth, i do, to shake off endeavour and strive.




the pain of my siblings, of our parents, the deep sorrow and feelings of loss i can never truly know,


are knots within me, that year by year continue to grow,


and as the well-meaning good people talk of the slow peaceful healing of passing time,


i am unable to shake off the guilt, the regrets, the shame, the thoughts,


of my guiltless crime.