Men’s Month – November

Poem on guilt by Nasheya:

Finally Free
I’ve sat with all this guilt
for decades
eating me alive,
with my insides rotting
and then I wonder,
how this cancer?
Like worms that ravish their meals,
this guilt savours every bite
of my prostate,
decaying, and allowing
the shameful maggots
to consume every last bit of it.

It seems delicious to it,
but to me it hurts
as my insides burst,
clench, tighten inwards,
unable to release all of that
heavy energy I carry within,
as if a child of my own
grows within,
but this child only
takes and takes,
as it expands
with each passing day,
with each domino falling
one after the other,
all my family shun me,
as if I’m a gross disease.

Losing all those who claimed
to love me
will be far from easy,
so I might as well keep
myself locked in till my dying breath,
never having to face
another day of shame,
another blemish on my name.
When I am not around,
no one will be able to remind me
of the maggots growing inside me,
no one to haunt me,
but oh I was wrong—
I’ve just become a
lone ship in the ocean,
even though I was
surrounded by my kin;
ostracised from
my own blood,
my ancestors,
forbade me from ever
letting my kin in,
afraid their unconditional love
would suffocate,
I kept on living,
showing them a different me,
when all I ever wanted
was for them to see me, as me;
One full of love,
One full of life,
One who got wounded as a child,
and of whom could never escape.

But now that I am here,
I set myself free,
I allow myself to receive
all the love You have to give me,
And I know I will always
be smiling and laughing through You.

Finally Free

“I wrote this poem for my grandad, who passed away a few years ago. He came to me during an intense meditation, and I felt the guilt he had been carrying all along as a man who wronged his family, who didn’t have space to feel and express his emotions, who wanted love but drowned in his guilt. This poem reiterates how important it is for men to express their feelings and allow room for self-love even amidst mistakes; love is the one thing that can save us from our shadows.”