If Only

Monologue

If only I met you five years before.

Would my life be different to what it was before?

If only I could tell you how I really feel.

Would it make a difference to how I would appear?

If only I felt good enough to be by your side.

I told you give me two years by then would I have changed my mind?

If only I would be true to myself.

But, I am responsible for my choices and loyalty at most.

Just for once I want to be free and let you see what we could be.

My heart has been broken that I can agree.

I have to be strong now and show the mom I really can be.

All I want is to be loved for me.

If that is too much to ask let me be.

If only I had chosen a different path my life would start with you and end with God.

15 November 1900 I sit outside my tent writing this poem in a language that took me long to learn and understand.

My name is Katrina Botha an South Afrikaaner and this is my story.

I was nineteen when I married my husband Jacobus Botha and moved to his family farm.

It was an arranged wedding between my family The De Beers and his The Bothas.

But, the 11th of October 1988 changed my life forever and I will never forgive the English soldiers for the traumatic experiences since that day I have experienced.