The Road To Healing Poem by Angela Bontle Ditumiso

You spend time closing yourself up
Only to figure out
None of the craters and gaping wounds
You stitched up was the source
Of the pain you felt

Now a little louder is the pain
Calling for your attention
Asking you to look at the wounds
The wounds your body doesn't bear

You play doctor
You know, typical African
Hoards this phobia of hospitals
Wouldn't drag their body there
Unless they are at the brink of death

You suture and suture
Then suture some more
But you won't stop bleeding
Pain into the present
Everything you touch is left
Stained with your pain

It is only then that you realize
You have crotcheted your skin
But it is your soul
That has been oozing all along