The taker
Cutting this plantain just made me realise how much
you didn’t appreciate what we did.
What we were for you.
I’m in pain. I’m frantic.
I can’t really describe all that I feel
and you just come in
like your job was to watch football
and complain that were didn’t work fast enough get food out on table.
You’d be annoyed that we’d find camaraderie
and talk between ourselves between our labours.
Rather than get stuck in
so we’d all have our jobs lightened
and our food faster.
You’d find yourself giving and gracious
by removing yourself from the premises
so you didn’t have to watch us slave away for you.
And I cry every day because I see this useless man in all the men I love.
I can’t embrace them fully
cos you and society taught men to have no initiative at times like these.
Helpless babes only to take and be helped.
You take by not giving and expecting to be given to.
The best of them are dogs that can only move once instructed.
Nothing in the job description of birth mentioned being a maid.
You’re a taker.
You take and you take and you take
until the person sucked dry
and there’s nothing left to be given
and that hurts.
