Melita
they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive
of the women they burned alive
Melita had been immersed in death before. In ghosts, in wraiths, in phantoms. In loss. In losing nearly everything, no matter how far her arms reached and no matter how much she tried to shield. She could grit her teeth and bear the weight of her family on her shoulders, and it still hadn’t mattered.
But was this a deprivation? This demise of a father who’d never wanted his children? A cruel, ridiculous, egomaniacal man, incapable of bearing responsibility for his actions? A being made of nefarious properties, who plotted and schemed and bludgeoned simply because he could? To have never truly known him other than a face and a no sealed across his lips; the denial of her existence and blood ties to him, a searing memory that had once embodied the way she walked, the way she talked.
And maybe now she was proud, at the very least, that he’d never really been hers in the first place. Better to have lived without that barbaric beast, than to have been influenced and taken under his wing.
What Melita didn’t expect though was the answer – widening her eyes once more as Saartjie described the movements, the motions, protecting Sunjata, death, death, death, at her own hands. It took her a moment, to stretch out the feelings, the emotions, as they bound their way alongside, within, her very soul. A thousand things ran behind her teeth and over her tongue, until finally the statement sizzled until it couldn’t any longer. “Good for you.” If there were intonations of pride instilled in there, then so be it; it shown in the blaze of her shoulders, in the ignition of her gilded gaze. Her cranium didn’t travel downward, but merely glancing upwards, staring straight into her aunt’s eyes. “So what are you going to do now?” With your freedom?
But was this a deprivation? This demise of a father who’d never wanted his children? A cruel, ridiculous, egomaniacal man, incapable of bearing responsibility for his actions? A being made of nefarious properties, who plotted and schemed and bludgeoned simply because he could? To have never truly known him other than a face and a no sealed across his lips; the denial of her existence and blood ties to him, a searing memory that had once embodied the way she walked, the way she talked.
And maybe now she was proud, at the very least, that he’d never really been hers in the first place. Better to have lived without that barbaric beast, than to have been influenced and taken under his wing.
What Melita didn’t expect though was the answer – widening her eyes once more as Saartjie described the movements, the motions, protecting Sunjata, death, death, death, at her own hands. It took her a moment, to stretch out the feelings, the emotions, as they bound their way alongside, within, her very soul. A thousand things ran behind her teeth and over her tongue, until finally the statement sizzled until it couldn’t any longer. “Good for you.” If there were intonations of pride instilled in there, then so be it; it shown in the blaze of her shoulders, in the ignition of her gilded gaze. Her cranium didn’t travel downward, but merely glancing upwards, staring straight into her aunt’s eyes. “So what are you going to do now?” With your freedom?
because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life
to bring a whole wildfire to life
