Learn About Assault
Not how to prevent it.
How to turn your mind away. How to scold your child, brother,
friend.
No.
Learn how to act after.
To pull a convincing face
and say, “I could never, in a million years.” That’s good, I suppose.
But the earth is a billion.
Has another man’s million come to an end— reincarnated anew,
the vow he made?
Living and dying,
going up into…
heaven?
Sorry.
I’m not very religious. You get the point.
onto the likes of Sibusiso and Ted. One more century to go, he tells himself.
And then—
unleashed into the world,
a hungry man,
eager to walk,
to talk.
At six—
“Wow. What a great invention.”
For the Stone Ages had no erotica. The Victorian age had no porno.
The 2000s recession had no OF.
An iPad, used to perfect his plan.
Use a rope?
Sure, in kindergarten,
he peeked up skirts—
The girls—
just about to erupt into full women.
The perfect time for him.
Sweet boy.
Well-liked.
Charming.
The perfect time
to find his prey
of a million years.
(Tendai Nombulelo Mushaike (she/her) is a South African poet, writer, and cultural critic of Xhosa and Shona heritage. Her work traces the quiet violence of memory, womanhood, and inheritance. She has previously been published in the BK Magazine where her poem criticising cultural erasure within the Global South was featured.)