Price tags (Poem)
I will never love you.
Red dress
Showing all of you but your soul
Walking on 6-inch stilettos
As if your height measures your stature in society.
If ever cupid should lead me to believe that you are the one
I shall take my heart cut it out of my chest
And shove it down his throat.
This is a battle
Mind vs. Heart
But my heart has lost the war
For I no longer believe the beauty in the eyes of the beholder
No longer behold the beauty society sees in you.
This world is a supermarket
We are all labelled
With different price tags
But some of us can never be bought
We are priceless.
So we remain on the shelves
Awaiting a worthy buyer
On display for those who can never afford it.
As you walk past the mirror tonight
Take a look at yourself
At the point of sale
Where you degrade your self worth
To people who will never even care to know your name
See you more than you do yourself
And ask yourself
“Is this really what I am worth?”
Euticus Mola
My reply.
Dear Mr Judgmental.
I got your poem. You’re so judgmental. Taking about price tags. It is people like you, actually men like you who made me become the woman I am today. Oh I tried love. Gave my love, body, and mind to a man who lied to me and broke my heart. He told me what we had was forever and I believed him. I was there for him, encouraging him to pursue his dreams. Even giving him money for credit when he had none.
I lived for that man. Stayed in a one-room house in the middle of the slum and made due with the little money that I made plaiting women’s hair. This guy had managed to get a scholarship and went to a local college to study computers. He used to sell credit to people. Imagine how excited I was when he finished studying and got a job. Then the insults started. He started comparing me to all the girls he would meet at the office. Soon he decided I was not of his class and neither was our neighbourhood. He moved out without even telling me. Left with the things I had bought.
So don’t talk to me about love. I have done love and it broke my heart. Yes, I am beautiful. God made me this way and I decided that I will use this to my advantage. Yes, now I agree that I would rather laugh in a Mercedes rather than cry riding on a bicycle. Save your lectures about having price tags for someone who cares. Not I. my bank account is laughing so is my stomach. Maybe you have never slept hungry or had so many brothers and sisters that your parents are unable to pay all their fees. I am intelligent. I reached the fourth form. I got a good grade in KCSE but there was no money to go to college. So I started working.
I am happy. I can send my brothers and sisters to school. I am building a house on a plot of land my benefactor bought me. I am going to college during the day. Love did not do that for me. Sex for a price did that for me. Do not mistake me. I am not a prostitute. I am just the mistress of this one man. I provide him with a service his wife doesn’t want to provide him. She is too busy with her career, her children, and her chamaas. He is generous. I don’t feel like I have set a price tag on myself. I am worth what I believe I am. Your judgmental attitude will not change that.
Love is for fools and poets. The rest of us make do with lust and convenience. You are so naïve. One day you will realize what I say is true. In the meantime feel free to keep judging me. Since your judgments don’t pay my bills I don’t care. Soon I am getting a Vitz from my benefactor so while you will still be using the matatus I will be driving myself to freedom.
Steel magnolia.
PS. This is the continuing saga of a young lady. The story started with a post by @africanplato called Man of steel. Then I replied with Steel Magnolia then he wrote the poem above-called Price tags.
