Ashton Botha
CAPE TOWN - And there I stood, as I felt the weight of my body collapse on the ground.
I was present in every moment as if time were still.
I could feel my heart racing, I could hear people crying for help, but I was numb.
I could not move; my eyes were heavy with empty sorrows.
I never wanted it to end; my life was just beginning why would I possibly want it to end?
I was finally putting together the pieces of a broken mirror that shattered years ago.
I can feel my body being lifted off the ground, but I can barely breathe.
My lungs expand desperately needing fresh air, but I can only inhale the virulent scent that I am so used to.
I was always so damn good at hiding the truth, the world made it so easy.
They always seem to focus on the wrong things. Just to make themselves feel better, they are all so selfish. Even the ones you think you know, your family, your friends.
They are the ones that always seem to care the most, but they are good at pretending too. They placed my body on a metal bed, so cold, so lonely.
They all gather around to witness the lifeless body that lies there, still, quiet.
Trying to save what is left of my physical being.
I have been ready to leave this earth for years, the day my mother sold my body is the day my soul died, and it would be foolish to think I would ever want to revive it again.
At first, I thought she did not know. He was just another one of her boyfriends, we needed the money.
She never really loved any of them, and so they come and go. But he was different, he stayed; he had the most money out of all of them.
He brought her gifts, took her out, made her feel special. Only he never wanted her, and she knew that, but her years of bearing pain were over. So, she let him take me. Nobody told me that we live in a world where a mother would sell her child.
Nobody told me that my life’s worth was decided by anyone and everyone but me. I fell down this hole so deep that the only thing I could hear was the cries of used and abused girls who had just been thrown down to defend themselves.
They had left them to rot away but the suffering was so unbearable that taking their own life just seemed to make sense. And just maybe, if someone spoke about the suffering, we all hid, things would not have had to end the way they did.
I was only 14, I had nobody to talk to nobody I trusted. The world we live in teaches girls to embrace everything that is them and carry it as though it belongs to men.
My very existence centred around what people thought girls should be, trying to fit into this tiny box not knowing that I will end up slowly suffocating myself.
Years went by and I was still a slave to this chaos I called home. I thought I could fight it alone. Give him what he wants and then he will leave, but mother always wanted more. And the more she wanted, the more he took.
I had to stop going to school, to church every safe space I had was taken away from me. He stripped me from everything, I had nothing left.
He said I was the first coloured girl he has ever tasted, he said I was beautiful but too innocent. Brown girls are too easy he said, as blood dripped down my thighs. The only thing I felt at that moment was my heart in my throat, it was racing so fast I could hardly breathe.
I could not shout, or say no, I could only lay there as tears rushed down my face. He left the room and I just sat there, feeling my back burn from the scratches, feeling the bruises on my neck trail down my stomach.
But after the fifth, seventh, tenth, thousandth time I was used to the feeling. I called on God to help me, but it felt like all my cries just carried away with the wind. I lost hope, I lost faith nothing seemed to be worth living for anymore.
My body is tired, tired of fighting. I need peace, I need all the voices to be quiet, I need all the fears to disappear. I can feel the pressure on my chest, but I still cannot find the energy to take that breath.
As someone lifts my body from the bed, I can feel the gush of air rushing into my body. Everyone disappears from the room as though they were never there.
I was sixteen when I started taking sleeping pills, well any pills just to knock me out. Just enough to make me feel as though I would not wake up but not enough to kill me. I was seventeen when I started cutting myself for the first time. Seeing the blood and controlling the pain felt good.
The first time I tried it on my legs, but he said he did not like the way my legs felt with all these scars and scabs when he went down on me. So, I started cutting my arms, I never wanted to die because that would mean mother would have to leave the life she now knows. Despite everything I still loved her.
She has suffered her entire life, and I guess it is just my turn. I have thought about suicide many times, the paradise of silence.
Although I could never bring myself to do it. I remember sitting in the bathtub covered in blood. I couldn’t stop, I tried. I reached out to my only friend but all she could say was to stay calm and breathe.
Take deeper breaths, count to five, count to ten if you need to. But I was calm, I didn’t need to breathe, or count to fucking five. I just wanted her to say your worth something, you mean something, you’re valuable.
She continued to say, you’re up in your neck in it, you just have too many problems for me. I cannot get too involved in your life anymore, because it is never going to change, you are never going to change.
You let him touch you, control you. You like what he does and love looking for attention. I wish I could silence the words that had just stabbed over and over. Although I knew there was some truth to it. I could have spoken up; I could have run away. I guess fear just took over my body.
The fear of the unknown, where would I have gone? what would mother have done without me?
I know I would never be able to truly live in this house but at least I am not running down a vacant road filled with empty promises.
On my nineteenth birthday, I found out I was pregnant. I got sick and had to be rushed to the hospital. I was alone for the entire week. Mother could not have cared less, but I was glad I got a moment of peace. I could not sleep, but at least I did not have to see him.
After answering so many questions and doing so many tests, they told me I was feeling faint, dizzy, and cold because the pregnancy had caused low blood pressure. My heart dropped; I did not know what to say. I could not move, I just sat on the bed wondering what else could go wrong.
I know I do not want to have this baby; I cannot have this baby. I was discharged with some medication and went back to my reality. Weeks went by and I still did not know what to do, I ended up speaking to some family. I needed someone; I was desperate. Finally, I made my decision.
So that brings me here, I came to the hospital to get an abortion. I would never be able to bring a child into this world that reminded me of him. Someone who could have had his eyes, his nose, or his smile. He has ruined my life I would not let him ruin another child. He does not know I am pregnant, and he never will. I am not going back.
After this procedure, I am going to Durban to live with my cousin. She said she can get me a job and I can start over.
She is the first person to believe me, really believe me. After so many years of living in the dark, I think it is time I feel the warmth of the sun. I think I deserve to feel happy, deserve to feel at peace, and not feel like I am fighting for my life every single day.
I stood behind the glass window looking across the city. And that is when I felt my body collapse. And after I took that first breath, only one doctor stayed in the room, to try and stabilize my body. I told him to stop, whatever was wrong with me I just wanted it to stop.
Even though I have the chance to start over I do not want to fight anymore. I can finally end It all. Eventually, he stopped and said I was not going to make it; my heart is too weak. My body is run down from all the fighting mentally and physically.
I can feel my pulse weaken.
My body is in a state of shock, and all I can think about is that I, Ivory Anders, will never get to try and be the person I thought I could become.
Maybe if the world just stopped and took a moment to look beyond the fake smiles and laughs things could have been different.
And as I take my last breath, I know I will finally be free, Ivory Anders can finally be free.
Ashton Botha, 21, is a UCT gender studies honours student. The Silenced Voices is a fictional story that aims to normalise talking about the realities many women, especially women of colour face in society today.
Cape Times