Wat Sê Jy?

NOTE: NSFW If you’re easily offended by words

11 Feb 2013
For Anene Booysen and Jyoti Singh Pandey

During recent office intercourse
A young Woman laughed out loud
“I don’t want to say it” she said
Waited a bit
Then did.

If you’re easily offended by words
then best you take a smoke break now
or step out for a coffee.
If you’re easily offended by words
then Fuck You.

The young Woman asked simply with a straight face:
“How would you translate ‘Vagina Monologues’
into Afrikaans?”
I tell you she laughed out loud
Because the answer,
when laid out on its back
with legs open wide is:
“Poes Praat”.

Let the victim speak.
Poes Praat.

In Delhi,
A Woman was raped
And died
In Bredasdorp, a small farm town,
A Woman was raped.
And died.

If I get in my car in that small place
and set off for India,
Google Maps tells me to take the N1
for about 20 000 kilometres
or 275 hours (give or take)
There will be water and ferries involved.
But I know it’s not a road trip I look forward to
What connects them more than miles is blood
You see these women weren’t just raped
They were gang-raped.
Jackrolled,
They each pulled a train.
You see these women weren’t just gang-raped
They were fucked to death.

“But rape’s been with us forever,”
Somebody says:
“An accepted weapon of war
Collateral damage.
Ask the Romans
Ask the Barbarians
Ask the Women of Berlin in 1945
Ask the Women in Auschwitz
Ask the Women in DRC
Ask the Women in Gukurahundi.
In fact ask any man you know
who’s ever been to war.”

But her fingers and legs were broken
Take a look

A dirty iron rod was shoved
Deep inside her Cave of Pleasure
Take a look

She was fucked with a broken beer bottle.
Take a look
Her skull was caved in
Her gash was gashed
Her stomach was sliced,
and like Judas in the tree,
her insides spilled out
and screamed for help
where they lay –
in the dirt, in the sand
where they fucked her to death.

If you’re easily offended by words
then Fuck You.
Her blood cries out,
“I am Woman, hear me scream.
Hear my Poes Praat”.

South African statistics
are screaming silently:
You already know
Somebody
Who has already raped
Somebody
You already know.

So if you’re still listening
Wat Sê Jy?