Waiting To Exhale
I can’t breathe
I walk to the shops, my nostrils filled with the stench of teargas and burning tires. At seven years old, I’m too young to understand that my skin colour is not celebrated in this world. All I know is that I can’t breathe. With police officers and army officials constantly patrolling the streets, I have learned the colour of my skin is wrong.
I can’t breathe because, in my world, the smell of poverty surrounds me. Poverty has a “smell,” often disguised with overly sweet, flowery, cheap sprays concealed as perfumes that cloy to the older, church-going, flowery-hat-wearing women.
The homes that cook the same food because it’s the cheapest all have similar smells, much like those church-going women. I’m sensitive to smells and find I can’t breathe, so I take a deep breath and rush to a safe space on my bed, waiting to exhale.
Growing up in poverty, my taste buds have become accustomed to certain bland foods. My stomach to small portions. I read you can survive on only water for three weeks. I am on day two, and I am hungry. Will I survive to see day seven?
I can’t breathe when I hear women’s plaintive cries for mercy in the dead of night. The pain in their voices as they try to defend their faces against the blows — blows of abuse that are struck with the same ease as the “love” dished out that same morning — blows meted out like surprise gifts because there are no visible bruises.
I lie awake, listening, wondering when the night will descend into silence, and take a deep breath, waiting to exhale. This time my gender is the wrong one.
He is touching me again, and I wish he would stop. I don’t like it! He says it’s our secret, and I have concluded that secrets aren’t fun but painful. People, including him, tell me I am beautiful, so I start scratching my face to make myself ugly. I scratch until I can feel the blood under my nails. Its warmth soothes me to sleep. This time I learned my age is the wrong one.
My resentment at my circumstances leaves me feeling powerless, but I have learned patience and count the days until I am big enough to defend myself. I take a deep breath and hold it in, waiting until I am an adult and I can exhale.
If everything is wrong with me, then what am I doing here? Why was I born? I’m angry at God. I want to live a life where the only reason I can’t breathe is when I am no longer on Earth. I turn my back on God, upset that I wasn’t protected. I’m selfish enough as a child to want to live a carefree life. I hope and pray; yes, I continue to pray, that life WILL become easier and that I WILL find my purpose and discover why I was born.
I learned to fight the bullies that bully the weaker children in the neighbourhood, and now I am known as a bully. I don’t want to fight, but how do I stand idly by and allow the little children to be hurt?
I can’t wait to move to discover a place where people aren’t mean and ugly because of skin colour, gender, or age.
I silently vowed that when I “grow up,” I will fight for people’s rights.
I understood from an early age I needed to speak up and speak out. That maintaining silence only serves bad agendas and that education about racism, gender-based violence, child abuse, and other ills of our society flourish in silence and darkness.
I have exhaled:
Since my silence is no more, I have slowly begun to exhale the breath I held in for so long.
My pain is in teaching and writing, as is my triumph over it.
