When growing up, some friends boasted
They’ve become real men overnight
Had taints of mud in a wrestling match
They were bold to talk to any girl
My lack of gen dumbfounded them

You have not started, they chided me
Go back to the sand and play with toys
You still have a youngster's sense
I liked watching girls play, I was very shy
Afraid of hearing from them the word ‘no’

I held my breathe when they came close
My heart pounded like my mother’s mortar
So saved from drinking roots to get a cure
Some of these friends are dead today
Those still around have been silenced

Let us talk, with the benefit of hindsight
The effect of sexually transmitted infections
Be it gonorrhoea, syphilis, a taint from the mud
Or the much dreaded incurable HIV/AIDS
That has cut a swathe through our population

The lion once said to his animal friends
Fright does not mean a cooing cowardice
To run away from danger and stay alive
It's a caution he needed to plan, to fight back
Shyness gave me time to learn and be taught