EYES ARE WINDOWS TO THE SOUL
Poem by Refilwe J. Mokgatlenyane
They say eyes are windows to the soul
But mine are as dark as coal
Dark that no matter how careful you try to see through them, you won’t see the pain
Like a tortoise my eyes are a protective shell hiding all the black harmful memories packed inside my brain
They say our bodies are temples of God
But I fail to believe that because mine has been invaded with no permission from the most high
Has been destroyed and used despite its holiness
Mine has been stained with memories of lies and dirty ties
Mine has been painted and scribbled with big graffiti
They say life is what you live it up to be
But mine has never been my choice
Mine is like the horror movie where the innocent girl
Is haunted by her unknown demons and I am the main character
Mine is like the movie where the script writer forgot that she is supposed to include the climax and so the events keep getting worse and worser
Mine is like a curse that could never be reversed because I’ve killed the curser
And therefore, there’ll never be anyone to break the spell
Mine is a worse fairytale that turned off bad and no one would even dare to tell
My life is a rivalry of emotions
Where every little glint of hope gets carried away by huge whirlwinds of mixed portions
My life is a bad story
A film of nightmares that when I remember what happens
My nose flares
And lately I’ve been feeling like when God blesses people and make them happy, am the one he spares
Refilwe Mokgatlenyane is a young writer, an aspiring entrepreneur and an LLB student at the University of Botswana. Her writing journey has started way back since she was 9 years old, she started off as a short story writer and changed to novels and later on started specialising more on poetry writing.
