The Hero Alive in Me

 Heroism is a word we only use at the graveside

- Mahmoud Darwish

I stare at my body in the mirror looking for signs of heroism 

Muscle tissue filled with water, and glycogen, poverty conquered

But who can say for sure? For tomorrow? Such are wars of attrition

Relying on favourable economic conditions, and the strength of the Rand

Does the adequate fulfilling of macros make me a hero? The striving?

Would kwashiorkor tremble at the sound of my name? The thriving?

Or look me up and down with a scorching disdain and in reproach

Ask me what I would know about hunger? One dollar a day, a living 

I stare at my body in the mirror looking for signs of heroism 

There are dark bite sized marks on every part of the landscape 

Of somnolent one-sided battles with ravenous mosquitoes

I sleep as though going on nightly vacation in Death Valley

Having their fill without so much as a swiping hand in disturbance

Ectoparasites that have wreaked havoc in the name of malaria 

Am I a hero for having survived the African summer nights

That the taste of my blood is umami and gorge they must 

Can a reluctant donor of blood to the ecosystem be a hero?  

Is there not a special place in hell reserved for cheerless givers

As it has been written, so with little and then with much as well

I stare at my body in the mirror looking for signs of heroism

I see a temple but there are many men sipping whiskey in the lobby

Is it heroism that none have made it into the holy of holies 

Or am I implicated for atrium like glass that men can see through

Can an intombi endala speak for heroism or are the stretch marks 

Of women who have carried another human to term the zips to shut me up

For good. Have my nipples turned to nails for having never lactated milk

Am I disqualified as a nurturing and nourishing hero although willing?

I stare at my body in the mirror looking for signs of heroism

I bear no signs of violation, an absence of a sign as a sign 

I don't have rope lines around my neck from being hung from a tree

A noose of untidy and loose ends: Tshegofatso Pule

My limbs are still intact; parts of me cannot be found in a freezer

Once torn apart and opened, please refrigerate: Tshepang Pitse

Or the clue for my disappearance has been a missing bathtub

Earthworms have no need for Palmolive: Noluvuyo Ndema- Nonkwelo

Or have four bullet holes through which you can see bathroom tiles

Every day is for the thief, and the murderer: Reeva Steenkamp

Where love can be lethal, am I a hero for loving still, in spite of

For holding out hope for a masculinity with a different qualifier?

I stare at my body in the mirror looking for signs of heroism

And feel the G-force of living in this skin wringing out my organs

Poised articulation from a wit's end, is to break the sound barrier

Exercising a freedom of expression is one giant leap for mankind

Sitting up in bed every morning in the face of a weaponized entropy 

Draining you of life, draculean in design, draconian in deployment

An ecosystem with the dermatoglyphs of the devil all over it

The draculin in the mouth that salivates at the destruction of this DNA

The drool of a dog in proportions of dams we can drown in

Genetically, the bone mineral density of black people is higher

Am I a hero for not giving into this sinister sinking feeling?

I stare at my body in the mirror looking for signs of heroism

And look beyond the flesh and into the ark of the covenant

This dwelling place of power, glory, and certain victory

Flattening the tails of scorpions, death has lost its sting

The tabernacle that cannot be allowed to touch the ground

That has a sacred protocol of how to be handled or approached

The moving cloud before me that shows me the way 

Withstanding criticism, withholding judgment, with God and is God

A golden courage with the words of Frederick Douglas inscribed on it:

One man and God is a majority, rendering a life lived abidingly, heroic