there isn’t a word
in your language
for being touched
but there are signs
you must have given
like how you limped
to one side
like the tilted atlas
in your geography class
“the earth isn’t flat….”
your teacher spat
as if she was talking to you
but there must have been a knife
because how else would he have
told you to lie flat like the earth
and not make a sound
told you to flatten your hills and valleys
so he could roam them better
there isn’t a word
in your language
for being touched
but there are signs
you could have given
there must have been too much blood
wasn’t there too much blood?
who cleaned it all up?
how did you manage to hide
the red ocean that spilled from you?
didn’t you leave blood stains
everywhere you sat?
hints, signs, evidence
of what was done to you
there isn’t a word
in your language
for being touched
but the way you felt like dying
you must’ve looked like a ghost
like your soul was knocked off
the coat hanger behind the door
where it hung
there isn’t a word
in your language
for being touched
but my god
someone should have saved you
Veripuami Nandee Kangumine is a writer and poet from Windhoek, Namibia. Her poems have appeared in My Heart In Your Hands: Poems From Namibia (2020).