REST IN PEACE

Dear seed bearer,

The choice is no longer yours

To secretly slide hands under panties on verandah

Sunday evening after church

Darlin’ wife in the kitchen preparing dinner

You had me for dessert

Rice and peas

Chicken stewed

Daughter screwed

When sleeping dogs could not bark at what they witnessed

Wake up mummy, auntie and the baby

She would be able to scream

Not like me too paralyzed to cry out

Cry out, cry, you liked it when I cried

My tears falling on your shoulders

Not a part of me

Clear droplets of broken chastity

Daddy?

Why?

Did I commit some crime?

Pregnancy unwanted, fi dash weh like stale manish water

Or was this always part of your design

To have me be your concubine?

Sweaty finger marks echo over the valleys and gutters of my terrain

Permanent duppies but they don’t scare me

So why do I feel ashamed to call you anything else

But daddy? You underestimated my will to survive

In your world, a man’s world where pickney gal fi breed

Wash clothes and cater to your every need

Draws now clean on line are too large

To fit a small bony frame long gone

Daddy only resentment remains in the wake of waiting for death to take you away nourishing a quiet knowledge that lacks empathy

For even death was too good for you,

His maggots could never nyam sin from your bones enough

To satisfy the child that sits on my knee

Judge, hangman and jury

For you dearest daddy

If mother earth is just

I pray she turns her heart away

That you may never

Rest In Peace.