There are many ways to die....

You will come into this world with zeal
kicking and screaming at the nurses
Your eyes closed and non-negotiating
Your hands balled into an angry fist
Your face red as the bloody sun
and the world will placate you.
Your mother's milk will sedate you
and your passion will turn into
quiet whimpering meekness.
Like a dog to it's master you will
smile as they pet and groom you.
This is the first way you die......


You'll grow into the world with wide-eyed wonder
Exploring, questioning, learning
Failing, falling and feeling
Your mind will build castles where there are ruins
Your eyes will see beauty where there are scars
And you will see royalty each time you look into a mirror
Until, until you are forced to wake up from this dream.
To stop questioning, marveling and feeling.
You will blink once and the castles will crumble
You will blink again and the scars will glare at you in ugliness
And your crown will disappear the next time you look in the mirror.
This is the second way you die....

The third death is a physical one
You'll see the signs on your skin
You'll feel the evidence in your uterus
Blood and pieces of flesh running down your legs
and into the toilet bowl.
A burial site
for all the unborn children
you'll never know or want.
All signifying death.
Your death and theirs.
All signifying birth.
The birth of society's slave.
This.
This is the third way you die....

This is the fourth way you die
On the bed listening to your mother
telling you how you must stop
playing with boys
and how you must fear
the monster called pregnancy
how your life is dependant on how fast
You can run away from it
How your future is dependant on how quickly
You can dodge it.
And how the end of the world
will begin the day you decide
to let a boy touch your breasts
This is a lie.
The end of the world will begin
with you sitting on that bed
being taught to fear
the arrival of your womanhood.
Being taught to mourn growth.
This is the fourth way you die.....

The fifth death is an emotional one
It'll happen in your room over the phone
After that beep signifying the end of a call
The end of a call that just ended
something you thought was love.
The heart will stiffen into glass and crack
The tear ducts will boycott and produce no tears as if they know the truth
That the human being you thought was the human being
 is not worth losing bodily fluids over .
And the world will continue turning too
But you will stop and die.
And you will be buried by homework
and chores and responsibilities.
This is the fifth way you die.....

The sixth death is the most tragic
You will dress up for this one
In jewels and makeup and white
You'll show up for this one, late
but of course, fashionably so.
You'll walk down the aisle and see smiling faces
People dressed in their Sunday-best as though
As though they came to celebrate you.
They did not.
They came to bury you. In white.
They came to bury the woman you are and replace her with a sheep.
Or a dog, even.
They will use your cake-cutter to dig a grave for you
 in that same room where your aunties told you
 to never look your husband in the eye or ask him where he is coming from!
In that same room your future husband told you to quit your job
so you can focus on raising the children.
On that same bed your husband pushed you onto when he forced himself
 onto you because wedding nights are for sex did you not know that?
And he deserves at least this much after all the money your family demanded from him.
In a white gown you will be buried
and your bouquet will rest on the grave.
Everything that comes after this will not be a life.
It will be a haunting greyness.
An organised mess.
You will smile and cry tears of joy on this day because you won't realise that this.
This is the sixth way you die....

There are many ways to die
especially when you are a woman.
But.
There is a promise of rebirth.
After each death.
There is a promise of rebirth.
All the way into the grave.

-S.C.Netha❤


Image: Rudo Mugabe