Isis Questions Render Me Bankrupt Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

ISIS questions can be like a roach in my ear,
I ask them and draw a blank knowing a bank of
questions has drawn another blank check,
when I thought I would have something there
is nothing. Blank slate, blank page, blank
me, blank mind, blank talk where are the filers?

If I were inside a body ready to kill and
be killed would I be full of the hate of
those who will scream and twist and turn
on the ground when the thing I have
done has gone up in the flames I light
with a matchless stick that is a power
tool of a darkness and end I chose for all?

Would I be bold and walk the last minutes
of life knowing it will be done this roast
that cannot be eaten by the tears that will
pour out into questions breathed into the air?

Would I know leaders will speak and curse and
say, 'this scourge has to be contained, ' and
go into the death chamber of my own choosing
blown into smithereens of time a hero
Just because I also hurt those I could get?

Would I be full of war or full of anger?
Would I stand for the last time at the edge
of the cliff and know I am going where there
is no coming back because of the promises of
virgins and a good life forever?

Would I chose to be the name all
mention and hate wishing I had never been born,
including those who sired me?

Would I do it if I had no country and felt
others had taken my humanity for granted and
broken everything that lay in a shambles and be
the hero that tried.

Would I see the devil in nameless beings
in the spaces where I am about to do the
deed stopping me and rush to do it anyway
before I am stopped.

Would I think there is only one time to
be a hero in this earth and where you do
it does not matter?

Would I wish I had chosen a better way to
speak than to kill because the death of us all
silences the cause and then Stop! Questions?

Would I start to think again as I hesitate
to do this which labels me the worst back
stabber that is so much about doing that
I chose to disappear in the carnage
chosen for all before its time?

I respect questions because
they help me to shape things
and agree to start again.
Shaping ISIS questions stops when my mind
rewinds and brings back flashes that silence
me and sink my soul into a depth where neither
the dead nor the living have been. The account
is still below zero. The red entries still blink
at me. I am a woman rich at the question bank,
but poor as they show me the ledger.
Is, is, s the only letter that is,
That is not near a z, yet brings
lives of many to their zed.