HOW MANY?

As my flesh pops and sizzles
And my bones dissolve
I agonizingly ponder how many
Like me boil in a witch’s cauldron

I am being boiled alive in a vat
Soaked in vitriolic hate and malice
The hag cackling and blowing the inferno
A broad I once called a mother!

The scientists buried their heads in the sand
When they couldn’t physically measure it
The modern society has turned deaf and blind
Recoiling from the base dread it engenders

And yet the evidence is all too vivid
In the artistry of all societies worldwide
And the practice all too common
In all communities on earth

Witchcraft is a malevolent force
Concentrated evil incarnate
The west realized this long ago
And conducted a long witch-hunt

But Africa and other parts of the world
Have yet to eradicate this menace
Whose debilitating and despairing effects
Plague people all around indiscriminately

Imagine an unseen being choking you
An unseen power sabotaging you
How do you explain the intangible?
How do you show the unseen?

For some lucky family members
Their relatives take them for exorcisms
But what about the unlucky souls like me?
Who the witch was supposed to be the relative

© GIDRAF MWANGI