Through most of my life until now I am surrounded by these invisible cold steel bars and high concrete walls with the electric fence to prevent me from escaping.
I even have those steel shackles around my wrists and ankles.
Even though I didn’t commit any crimes I feel like a prisoner in my own skin.
The very skin I was born with.
The only “crime” I committed was to be born with this colour.
In my mind I can hear the warden shouting, lights out and then the heavy steel door closing behind me.
Everyday I stand at those street lights hoping someone will give me something.
But they just pass me by and spit on the ground instead.
All they see are my filthy rags on my skeletal body and my yellow stained teeth.
They treat me like filth with the vulgar and derogatory names that spews from their mouths.
Even Mother Nature has no mercy on me with its unwanted rainstorms and severe blistering hot weather.Most times I scratch in their filthy rubbish bins for anything to eat.
Sometimes I am in luck and other times I walk away empty handed.
Even the government doesn’t grant me an allowance as they say that I’m not that age yet.
My identity book means absolutely nothing to me because I am nameless.
Sometimes someone will give me odd jobs which I’m grateful for but truth be told I’m watched like a hawk while being underpaid and exploited.
When I hear people complain about unemployment and load shedding, I think about my situation and wonder what they would do if they were in my shoes?
I have been fighting this system ever since I can recall.
Where I come from I have load shedding every day of my life.
Where is the justice in all of this?
They think that they are entitled to live where they do but they’re so wrong and should think again.
Years ago I was only good enough to work and be their slave in those black, stuffy coal mines to enrich them.
But they are so greedy that they wanted more and more nothing satisfied their thirst for money and power.
Now I’m just one of the many who fought this unequal system and still does.
I am the forgotten one.
