Extracting The Worst … (Rev.) Poem by Margaret Alice

Sometimes things so awful happen we
cannot find the words to capture them,
so horrible beyond compare, we look
and there’s a cherished dream destroyed
yet we hobble on without the reverie
that kept our spirits strong

my life now turns to meaning measured as
ability to earn and care for kids I brought
into this world (supposedly against your
will) : but still you must humiliate me
publicly for daring to eat where you, for
my sake presumably, had forbidden me

once again my image-dream of love is
wrong, it’s not acceptance, benevolence
or kind consideration – it’s hard, cold,
exacting, meant for extracting the rigid
in us; then suddenly we are cooped up in
Hell and I am seeing pictures of me

a dwarf; ugly, shrunk, short and broad
with skin withering, brown freckles every-
where; realize what Jane’s gynaecologist
said is right – we should shrink up and die
immediately; is Gospel Truth indeed, we
are too ugly and useless to live – I agree

LIFE is a sad conviction of false promises
and dying hopes – I HATE Kwa-Zulu Natal,
I HATE the sun, I realize this with every boring
moment passing, most of all I HATE the heat
and everything to do with me – plus my idiotic
tribe with absurd ideas of self-sufficiency

(I didn’t know I was a dwarf, so when I discovered that I
was one, the shock was great - As for Jane at work –and
her gynae – I’m going to get his details and ask him to help
me wither and die immediately!)