Stay

Don’t leave me feeling like a star on dying days;

Don’t hail my name as a true soldier, with an amputated leg;

Don’t shake my plastic hand and forget the real one lying in thaaat rubble;

Don’t feed me with imported foods from across borders & ethical boundaries (in people’s hearts); Don’t cry with me & leave me here thereafter.

Tell me the truth right now, while you can about who I am & lets enjoy each other’s company, before the war; you will find that there will not be a war

Say my name without fear & favour and I will walk to you every time I need to, for advice & livelihood;

I will shake your hand too if you shake mine, once we’ve done right & neighbourly unto one another.

We will sit & eat & laugh & drink under this African sun together, but please do not call me a star when it is too late;

Do not call me a star on a rainy day in Africa;

Do not demand my energies & beliefs on the day that it is hard to smile & practice them

Do not leave me wondering where you are & what to do about myself because you have gone to a land too far, to call me a star

Do not leave me in open air, all alone with nothing but faith & hope & Love & the need to understand this;

Do not say goodbye & swirl into nowhere that I can imagine, like a thief in the night dying for himself, but leaving a “star” behind

I do not want “star” to cry

I do not want “star” to survive just barely

I do not want “star” to hate

I am no “star” because I am Haitian

I do not want “star” to be forced to remember ill &

I do not want “star” because I made it through all the pain.

I do not want “star” because you left me to show off all, on how to squeeze through this pain & survive it.

Call me a star because you know what I can do to change people’s minds about pushing these rocks to fall and hurt us

Call me a star because you know about the power vested in me to undo the shake quakes in people’s hearts

Call me a star because you know I can love and smile and laugh and crack this place

Call me a star because you do not wish for a war and the lies and the hardness that shatters with it

Call me a star because we make this land.
Call me a star: I will never leave my country because I caused confusion & war

Call me a star because I am responsible & respect my consequences.

Stay.

By Nomfusi Xinindlu
The Collection: Whispers of the day & Monologues of Today