The Rebel Returns Home Finally Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

I hear words from my past spoken,
And see them forming in mouths,
Sometimes frothing and foaming
At the sides with fingers wagging,
Thrown at me from everywhere,
Speakers serious with backs tired,
Hurling them at me these objects,
Me a rock looking on,
Where did all the words go?
I ask a question here right now,
Where the search for the real me,
I set out to find has ended in truth,
That can only be unspoken right here,
Where I stand with open hands,
Wishing for a pair to receive me,
Who never begged as I walked on,
To this surprise called my life.

I search around me as I look,
My grandmother pouring words,
Ringing praises into the air,
Saying the future is brighter.

The priest sweating hands up,
His coat on his back dancing,
This way and that the madman,
Telling me life is not a joke.

My mother speaking stomping, yes
Up and down the kitchen floor,
Breaking one high heel in her anger,
And falling on the floral sofa in her rage,
Banging the door shut this I do,
Throwing myself into the wind
That receives me with a howl.

Now as mother I look once more,
I retrieve the slate of old so black,
No white words for it was erased,
This tape recorder in my head,
Seems to have heard only one word,
No!

Yet I lived and blocked it out,
And walked into the torrents outside,
My coat ready to get wet like my throat,
Which was drenched in liquids hot and cold,
For to live was all I wanted,
Living one word only I knew,
Yes!

Now I stand on this pavement unsure,
My sneakers wrongly laced up like my years,
One hole missing where they were ten,
Not knowing how all this happened,
This tangling that made me fall,
For they smell like the garbage can,
I refused to take and empty at my home,
How will I enter where I left its smells,
Floundering in the air like me?
This world that I tossed into my mother's lap,
With the pride of the knower I was,
Only to find the door locked and the key,
Not under the mat like yesterday.

Like the wounds that scar the hound,
That barks for the whole neighborhood to hear
I stand voiceless with a hoarse voice,
As the puppy I once owned,
That walked away and thought it knew,
Every stranger that it saw,
And barked loud wagging its tail,
Only to return with scars all over.
Its head bowed in obedient quiet.

I walk home for home is home,
Never to leave in like manner,
As I did when the pellets were there,
Waiting for me to take them in,
And gain strength when they are thrown,
At me one by one like the words,
I flung back at my mom in rudeness,
Thinking I was and always would be.
As if scratched each time she spoke,
I stand here leaking them away,
Unsure when they will heal,
If I go back to the house,
Built for me outside her heart,
For I will knock and scratch the door softly,
And return home new smells and all.