CRÉATIONS LITTÉRAIRES
An Albino Snake
I just lay there for a while after regaining consciousness. Directly above me was the stain in the ceiling where the roof leaked. It looked like a big gray map of South Africa. And that darker gray spot at the centre where the water oozed through when it rained was exactly where Jozi was located.
Or, better still, maybe it was exactly where I, Sabelo … (well, you don’t need to know my last name) formerly of … well, far from that dirty grey patch, was now located,
I thought of my life like the slow drip, drip, drip of that leaking roof, and my body was like the puddle it made on the floor.
Expectations
0 Cries ring out, interrupting the humdrum of feet scuttling up and down the corridors.
Two sets of eyes stare down, tears well up within them as hopes and dreams, still in their infancy, manifest themselves within.
One set looks up, blank and unknowing, tinkling with untapped innocence.
5 Your screams are filled with unbridled joy, small hands, small feet reach out as if reaching for the sky.
Coloured wings flutter just out of reach, and yet that crooked grin widens. Unfettered by thoughts of the life ahead.
14 Hair falls over your eyes as you try to hide the red of your blushing cheeks.
In the background the deep drone of your teacher’s voice is interrupted only by the harmonious giggling of a group of girls at a table nearby.
Blank
A
I pulled kinks, your smallest spirals, from the brink of my tongue
Between the
Fingers as bells
Swinging scents of black
Recognized by black
B
I often pull down lids to the dust of the ground
Because our lives never mattered
But, next time I’ll try to return your gaze
With longing
To weave through reeds
lash to lash
as though they were lily pads