The Ashtray

I have not been as lucky as my other sisters
Not lucky in the sense of having an easy life
I know not a Black woman that kinda lucky
For our lives are often not smooth stretches
Something always happens along the way

A racist and lazy Ma'am at the washing machine
A rude and chauvinistic brother in the banking hall
A disillusioned and delusional teenager at the spaza
A judgemental and self-deserving madala in the taxi
And a nagging and dismissive mother-in-law at home

Now you  tell me what is so smooth in our lives
When the sticker next to my taxi driver speaks to me
'I am tired of women sitting in the front' it reads
And my mind immediately registers Black women
For it is my Black sisters and I often in this same taxi

So with this sticker my day begins, off the taxi into the world
And mine is a journey perhaps not by many travelled
I'd love to think that this pain that I constantly have to endure
Had nothing to do with my Womanhood and Blackness
But no, my circumstances are slightly doctored by my biology

Some of my sisters do not have it as hard I heard
But while I fight all forces oppressing  me and mine
I will lift up my head and on their behalf intercede
And at the Caucus I will let the ancestors decide
The fate of my overflowing wooden ashtray