Lubabalo Tatase Poet Free verse

The Keeper

The Keeper

I never killed the thing that sleeps in me.
I learned its hunger and I kept the keys.
I fed it silence, dressed its cries in manners,
and taught it, when old wounds called out its name,
to lower its head and stay.

Down there, the dark is patient.
It has counted every slight I swallowed,
every knife I thanked for being gentle,
every wrong I carried home and did not answer.

Above, they see my softness and conclude
that nothing lives behind it.
They read my calm as fear,
my patience as a bow,
my mercy as a latch left off the door.

So they lean harder.
They laugh at the low warning in my voice,
press the bruise I asked them to leave be,
and wonder why the room has cooled.

Below, something lifts its head.
It doesn't roar. Years have taught it stillness,
and stillness is the thing you should not wake.

It knows how tired I am.
It knows each cruelty loosens one more finger on the bolt.

Still I hold, not for the ones who wound me,
but for the man I fought to stay.

And when a hand tests the last line I drew,
I feel it lean against the wood,
unhurried, sure of me,
and I press both palms against the door
and wonder how long wood can hold.

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