Ashen Cheeks

She plays by hearth,

Almost at the same spot where she was given birth.

It been four years since.

Despite the ash on her face and cheeks,

All can see she will be even more beautiful than a queen.

She runs home crying and alone,

Rivulets of tears breaking the gray of her ashen cheeks.

Gushing from her eyes, tears of pain, humiliation and determination.

Skin ashen, for they could not afford even petroleum jelly.

Never again, will they call her The Ash Queen.

It is the Friday after Ash Wednesday:

She is preparing for her ‘first real date’.

It is going to be a good Friday,

She muses at her own muse, as she applies scarlet on her lips,

Before dusting her face, overdoing the ashen cheeks.

In the Twilight Zone way past twilight,

Makeup well fixed and the inner eye fixed,

On getting her shine on and then a fix.

Clothed in a skirt that barely covers, her never-now ashen ass cheeks.

Still her glitter-covered face in the lamplight’s harsh glare, has ashen cheeks.

Drained of all colour she leaves,

The clinic where she just saw, the ashen skin.

Face drained of all colour, ashen cheeks.

From where lives are snuffed out and cremated,

The ashes to be thrown, in an Aspen creek.

In the Twilight Zone, way past her twilight,

The lamplight’s harsh glare, covering her crow’s feet.

Powdered-up face, plastered smile grim.

None can cover the bruises,

On her ashen face skin.

She is dead now, truly got ashen cheeks.

A ritual must be performed,

To ward off her wayward seed.

Her grandmother gathers ash and apply it on her behind,

The ritual’s success is focused, on her ashen ass cheeks.

(NB: It is rumoured that those who don’t give birth in Kikuyu land have ash applied on their behind and their grandmother sits on their stomach. This causes ‘flatulence’, blowing off the ash. This is believed to make their spirit of non-reproduction vanish like the ash does in thin air. I don’t know a case of this happening personally nor a first-hand account. Everyone say they heard from someone who heard from someone who saw/heard of it happening).