Do-Gooder Turned No-Gooder Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

Once you turned in your work
before the teacher told the date.
Now you lag behind and time pushes
ahead with you facing backwards
waiting on the belt called no-gooder.

Once the tablets were taken
as the prescription dictated,
now yo swallow one here and one there
saying you fear no sickness,
for they are just giving you medicine
when they are not sure what is wrong with you.

Once you crossed at the red and green light
now you watch for cars and dash across the road
anywhere, like the stray from the neighborhood
for the earth once unfamiliar, now reads like the sand,
that you see on your doorstep.

They say familiarity breeds contempt.
Is it doing the same to you, making you
give up on humanity and also on yourself
for once you were a do goober, even helping
neighbors with parcels when they walked toward
the house.

What happens when you lose touch,
with the best part of you, like a virgin
failing to cling on to the promise once
kept to the body, that not this boy or that,
but the one who has the touch of love,
and can keep your body warm, with the kisses
longed for, and years of waiting?
Keep the gentleman's touch like Tom,
Open doors for ladies and pay for the
dinner for two. I miss the do-gooder in you,
and hate the no-gooder for I do not know
where that came from.