Metaphorically speaking
Thabo Mqalu 2002 (Eastern Cape)
I have this tendency
I take ownership of stages
I have yet to stand on
Once my mother
My mother told me to escape reality
Create your own she said
So I dreamt foreign
Of itching palms
And deceased relatives
In dreams my grandmother associated
With great wealth
And ceremonies
That needed to be performed
But I saw nothing out of the ordinary
As my imagination
Presented itself as an itch
In hopes to grab my attention
Through setting my hands on fire
I felt myself missing a corpse
A body that once carried
My blood through its veins
So my mind
My mind logged on to forgotten memories
Reflections of my brother
In mirror that is 4 decades older him
To mould a statue
Paint a portrait
Create images
That made me feel closer to him
My father
Haploid
One pair of my chromosomes
Perhaps the only reason why today
I can say that I’m standing tall
With nerves of steel
Calling a spade a spade
In a stage that has never belonged to me
But has loved me without condition
As if to say
I may be the first stage you stand on
But I will definitely not be the last
About this poem
This poem is about my life and the challenges I’ve had to navigate through. It also touches on the loss of someone close to me and how that has and still is affecting me.
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Written on May 12, 2020
Submitted by 2437769 on June 30, 2022
Modified on April 22, 2023
- 1:12 min read
- 2 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABCDAX EXXXXFX AEXED XXXXFDG XXBGDXX HXXXA EHCX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,094 |
Words | 243 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 7, 5, 7, 7, 5, 4 |
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"Metaphorically speaking" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/131541/metaphorically-speaking>.
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