by Rachael Chitondwe
Forget what goes bump in the night
For you don’t need the dark to be scared outta sight
I thought it was just a story at first
A myth, a folklore of some sort
But nobody told me this is the reason why girls go in groups
But oops, it’s just what girls do, I usually thought
I used to be afraid to ask the Teacher to go to the loo
Cause I was afraid of being reprimanded
But now I wonder if she was secretly protecting all the kids from harm
Especially the girls who always went in numbers guessing it was safe
My visits to the loo were no longer safe, at school at least
For a girl named Peggy had died in there
How or why no one knew
But “Peggy musaladi” “Peggy the babe” had died in there
And her spirit sought to drag someone along to hell with her each year
Nobody knew what she looked like
But their words painted a vivid picture
As only horror could
I would imagine her opening
And peeping into every stall, until she would reach mine
There was no resting in the rest room
Rachael Chitondwe is a 24 year old writer, book reviewer, poet, singer, and rapper from Mutare Zimbabwe. She has self published three books to her name, Sweet Deceit, The Indians Child and Book of Poetry. Her work has appeared in The Blue Marble Review, Poetry Soup.com, Eureka Street, Wet Dreamz Journal, Africangn.net/poetry-platform, Cloutbase, and East wave Magazine. Five of her
unpublished poems are set to appear in an upcoming anthology called “Poetry is Life.” She is the receiver of the 2019 Certificate Petal Star Award from Inked with Magic and the 2nd runner up of the Kuchanaya Poetry Contest and one of the first winners of the Fortnight Poetry Competition and 3rd runner up of the of the Black History Poetry Slam 21. On Twitter @RachealChtondw, on Instagram @rachealchie.
