My brokenness is not broken
in the way we are used to broken things.
It’s not in pieces, no.
It’s not shattered.
Neither is it fragmented
Mine is whole.
It has simply been left
to dry out in the sun.
Unwanted.
It has been discarded.
It has been hung on a slow-burning fire
for too long.
Its plump, sweet juices squeezed out from it
Like a soggy sponge.
It is withering.
My brokenness
Wrinkled and dry;
A human biltong, too brittle to chew
Too salty to savour.
Too stringy to swallow.
A brown and dry winter leaf
blown off by the gentlest breezes,
Far from the mother who birthed it
Far from its siblings.
My brokenness is whole as it breaks
It refuses to separate itself from the public eye.
It is staunch and stubborn
as it shrinks and fades into a pale shadow of itself.
Godess Bvukutwa is a published writer and a feminist development practitioner. One of her short stories was published in Writing Mystery and Mayhem (Weaver Press). This story won the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Best Short Story Award. In 2012 Godess won the Zimbabwe Women Writers Norma Kitson Short Story Award. Godess is the Zimbabwean project lead for a British Council-funded series of projects titled ‘When Women Write’ which works with underprivileged young women to empower them through enhancing their writing skills.