Does God have a listening device?

because you are a drug addict

because you are a thief

because you are promiscuous

and you told your boyfriend 

to tell my brother that he, the guy you were seeing, had a gun

You abandoned the child

left your daughter with her paternal grandmother

You’re so bad that you were in my brother’s bed

the night your mother died

Your sisters cared and cooked for her

while my brother gave you pleasure, 

you moaned into the darkness, into the half-light,

as the silvery moonlight covered

the shadows of your bodies

in the room next to mine

Sometimes you would would come over in the afternoon

The two of you would go straight to his room

Afterwards, you would stand on the stoep

and smoke marijuana

While your mother, who had tumours deep inside her brain,

was waiting to die

Perhaps it is best that you disappeared

Maybe you’re in Johannesburg

Women lose their innocence there

And they never return

We will tell your daughter,

that she was wanted

that she has your nose, your lips, the colour of your eyes

We will tell my niece,

that you, the woman that she called mother

for the first three years of her life,

the woman who gave birth to her,

that she called, mummy, 

We will tell your daughter that you loved her.

This is for me, for the woman whose mother never loved her

When you gave birth to me, you drew

an invisible survival map on my body

Like your mother had drawn on your 

own body when you were born

You weren’t my best friend

No, we were never friends

You had your reasons, I suppose

You never taught me about make-up

You never painted my nails

You never said, I love you

So, now I look for Second Mothers in other women

You had your reasons, I suppose

You hit my father with a hairbrush

when he went for radiation therapy

When I shouted at you, you turned on me

You said that the social workers would come for me

You had your reasons, I suppose

I had failed you

I hadn’t given you grandchildren

I hadn’t given you a son-in-law

you could boast about to your friends

You abandoned me as a child

You had your reasons, I suppose

You call me mad, you have your reasons

Yes, you have your reasons

Can you acknowledge now the role 

that you played in my madness, mother?

Die mense gaan dink jy’s mal

She puts her fingers in a circle 

and rotates it around her ears. 

My mother laughs laughs like a maniac

From far away, the sound of my father’s voice, 

I have cancer. There’s nothing I can do 

for you anymore. Look after yourself, my child. 

It’s like he was saying goodbye

The darkness has taken its toll on me

It has also given me the wings of a dove

The world looks different up here

Believe me, it does

It’s less terrifying, there’s more connection

Question mark

Wednesday, early morning

It is the 22nd of July 2026

Waves of Charles Bukowski’s making

Our father 

is finishing radiation therapy 

on Monday

My back hurts

It is the middle of winter

At night, he looks at pornography on my computer

The computer that people out of the kindness of their hearts

fundraised for me

I am greeted, Good morning, in the darkness

By curvy women

And busty babes

An online casino, rainbow lights flickering

Is this what his despair feels like?

Every night, he  

surfs the web

Looking for

Curvy women

Busty babes

There’s nothing I can do about this

There’s nothing I can do about the online casinos

That I find on my computer

The cigarette ash

The packets of marijuana

The crystal meth

His pipes

Dear God, please tell me what am I supposed to do

When he makes a fist

When he screams, Dyke!

Yes, this is what I wake up to

Please, make it stop

I just want it to stop

And I don’t 

want to read 

this memoir 

that he is writing

I have 

a terrible cough 

and headaches now

because 

he smokes 

all the time 

in the house

He has a vape

He smokes that

He smokes cigarettes

He smokes marijuana

I don’t know 

if he is still using tik

He used to hide 

that in his drawer

Where his son 

played computer games

Is this 

what suffering is,

Or, is it terror?

Is it the stuff 

that nightmares 

are made from?

This is what my despair feels like

My sadness

my yearning for days gone by

The longing for the brother 

I used to know gone up 

in webs of smoke

The zol a cobweb in his hand

What am I praying for? 

Your soul?

Yes, maybe, 

I am praying 

for your soul

Maybe that is 

what a sister 

is supposed to do 

for her brother

I just don’t know 

how much more 

of this I can take

I am living 

on the edge 

every day

My mental health 

Is in a precarious 

state of balance

I am scared 

I will be hospitalised again

My sister says 

that she thinks 

I am sick 

and I need 

to see a doctor

They pay no attention 

to my brother

who is the cause 

of my distress

I am the problem

I knit

I knit 

I am knitting 

a scarf 

for my niece

I don’t know 

how long I will be sane, 

this time

I ask my father,

How can my own brother do this to me?

How? 

Why, why, why?

My father turns his head, and says,

There’s nothing I can do for you now

I have cancer

Look after yourself, my child

There is nothing 

I can do 

for you, my brother

But I will 

pray for you

For an about turn 

in your life

How I can remember

All the tides that came before

The shift and change in my mood

Like yesterday, like yesterday

As I feel it come upon me now

How sacred 

your boyhood was, once. 

Once. Once

I think of all the harm 

that you have done to me,

I think to myself that you 

would never have done 

that to the women

You worked with when you 

were a credit risk analyst at that bank

The white women, the pale Amazons

But you did it to me,

To your sister

What kind of a man are you,

Or are you just a drug-fueled monster

At the point of no return?

I have forgiven you

What else can I do?

I have my own life to live

I must look after your daughter,

encourage your son