Rules Written Just For You Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

If I was an artist,
I would paint the rules
with the softest touch
all over your brain.

I would deposit them into you
with a platinum card, and seal
the account closed, where withdrawals
are forbidden.

I would swallow the scrolls,
and wrap around you when you
leave, the warmth of what they
called my womb.

This rumbling and shaking of the world,
as we part, means you will never re-enter
the door I had to open to let you out.

You have grown big and learned words
that make you talk to the world.

The key to this door of wisdom
reopens when you open up and ask, why
you are here.

Answers come on a skewer and you
pull them out. This feast assorted
tells how hard you have searched for wisdom
while encircling the nipple
with your gums.

No milk flows for no reason,
even for an orphan found in a garbage can.

Someone who breathed and pushed will find you
the way I did, child of the earth.

Read the rules I painted before they fade.
This life has chosen you for you answered,
the call of the few who respond to the abyss.