There are stains on the walls. Not the kind of stains that come from dirty shoes or blood. The walls here have a voice. They are screaming at night. Every corridor sings a song. A struggle song. Sings a worship song. Sinks into the holes. Broken pillars. The doors sound like sirens. The banging knocks. Samuel Nthute was stripped naked in number four. His voice is still cracking in the window. Undressing in front of a white boy. A circus where the black animal was kept. Godfrey Moloi’s voice is shouting from the drain. He is denied to bathe. Left animal like and dirty. Black animal must remain stained. Constitutional hill is a choir drowning in the red sea of Joburg City. Choking in our own land. The air at ConHill is ghostly. Breathing is a privilege. Our father’s died in chains labeled freedom. Suffocated in gas chambers. Black privilege is swallowing my tongue, swallowing my breath because I cannot afford to live in this skin. We are haunted everyday by our father’s screams. A song echoes from the back “Ngizolifela bo, Izwe lam”. The last creed to the revolution. A fight till death declaration. We need to ressurect them. Need to hear them crying. Need to hear ourselves slowly dying.
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