Friday 15 December 2017

De mule uh de world (Ode to Zora Neale Hurston)

The black woman may be
   de mule uh de world.

but did you
                know?

that the female mule is
                                    stronger
than a
           stallion of similar size

that her endurance is
                                 unrivalled
she requires less
                          nourishment
to carry the same
                           load
as any sinewy
                       male horse
and for
            longer distances 
       
she is
          independent

her solitude
                   only
reinforcing her
                        power

yet she is still
                      ridiculed.
                      mocked.
                      denigrated.
and
      dismissed.

still.

she carries the load
                              long, far and wide
knowing that she
                           (de mule)
is pure
           black magic.

Thursday 14 December 2017

On what happened at Clarks and Olympia - The Occupation

when we
come together
at coffee
shops in this
colony

they stare
and glare.

wondering
if we are
queer,
affronted
by the concen-
tration in the
colour of our
skins

our uninhibited
laughs scare
them.

they pull out
their phones
and take pics

"look the mon-
keys have
gathered"

we occupy.
we occupy.
we occupy.

it terrifies
them.

"excuse me,
what do you 
all think the
future of this
country is
going to be?"

in response:
           silence

a burst of prop-
osterous laughter -
our disbelief -
their fucking 
audacity

we become the
spokespeople
for their deepest
fears.

Swartgevaar
is real. And
apartheid
never died.

they think
they own this
place /land/

but

blackness is
rising. and it
starts with us.

Our sister-
                 hood.
Our mother-
                  hood.
Our saint-
                  hood.
                         


Tuesday 12 December 2017

Bbz (Soul Sister)

Our shoulders
touch and
I play with
your hair
tenderly

between
the two of us
there is no
"don't touch
my hair"

because I am
a part of you
and you are
a part of me

we connect
without
speaking -

our lived
experiences
coalesce
and create
an entity
of their own

a universal
understanding
of fear, pain,
deep love,
intimacy,
care,
independent
but ubiquitous
trauma, fetish-is-
ation, and
oppression

we come together
through it all
and nurse each-
other into a well-
being with a love
so deep that no-
one without
melanin will
ever understand

it is eternally
safe and the
only heavenly
thing that we -
women of colour -
have in this horrid
and despicable
world

Gurl, I say,
touching
your glowing
skin:

You (we)
    are
        life.

You
kiss
my
hand.

A return to the abyss

i return
again

expending
all my
energy
on the
masculine

i am a
sucker for
its strong
seduction

its suction:
it takes and
takes and even
in its giving
there is limited
re-ceiving

the void
is tempo-
rarily
filled
/phallic/
disruptions
to my psyche

i vow to
erect a
wall -
but they
scavenge

and what
feels better
than being
picked
from a littering
of others

just like
me. The
fleeting
feeling of
being
exceptional -
a wonder

its deceptive
power only
fills the void
to widen
and expand
it

when and
(if) they
leave



Monday 11 December 2017

On unrequited love

there must
be a song
for
those who
speak the
language
of
unrequited
love

distant
 closeness

proximity to
a hazy dream
of what could
 be

the longing
to
just
graze palm
against
 dorsum

or finger
against
 temple

the desire
to be discovered
 and perceived

space
to be free,
 unbounded
and
 true

to slip -
for a moment -
into the other
 soul

and
 exist





Friday 8 December 2017

The Goddess

Bismillah 
  I say under
my breath
 when the mist
of uncertainty
  rises into
my chest

I don't think
I believe in:
a god, gods,
a deity, a man -
born 2000 years
ago in a world
that is three
times
that age.

I don't think
I
believe in
the
universe, an
inter-con-
nect-ed-ness
of spirit-s

But then
 why do I say
insha-allah 
when hopeful,
or resilient?

Or masha-allah,
at the site of a
baby born outrage-
ously moral

and alhamdu
lillah,
in the dark
hours of
the night?

when I wake
to find my heart
beat-ing
of its own accord
drum-ming
a silent rhythm
in my chest

I don't believe
in your God. I
can't. But I
do believe in
mine:

Compassionate. Woman.
Loving. Tolerant. Wild.
Free. Tender. Stern. In-
tuitive. Out-landish and
Funny. Oh, so funny.

A
Resistor
in the face of
your existence
designed to
oppress
mine.

A light. A guide.
A miracle.

G-race.



Say nothing

Sometimes the
silence in
between
two
mountains

says more
than a vibrant
volcanic
eruption
does in the
dark quiet
of the night

Tuesday 24 October 2017

For Eve

You are love
You are love
You are love
You are love
You are love
You are love
You are love
You are love
You are love 
You 
are
love
You are

Guided One

A face. one
that guides.
one that 
has received

divine 
     direction.
in it lie a
thousand faces
all alike and
unalike
  the same

by the morning
  brightness it
was lit with 
solitude - and
abandoned

and by the
night when
it covers 
with 
   darkness
was it availed  

to become.
to become 
the night 
   star
rising into
the haze of
twilight

A face. That
glimmered.
that said all
things of 

softness and
dusk and the
deepest fullest
emptiness of
love in its
being.

Thursday 12 October 2017

Hands - The Epicenter of My Being

From the
tip
    of your
fingers

dancing

at the
    center
of the bud

all life
comes to
a stand //
      still

somehow
you radiate
the sun
           and
the moon
all at once

breath
barely
     escapes
from my
     lips

as they
   open up
to the touch
that is
         yours
and my
     radiance

Wednesday 11 October 2017

Coming back to yourself - A Mantra

He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit
He ain't shit 
He 
ain't
shit
He ain't

Monday 9 October 2017

Port Dickson

The dirty smudge
of water and jellyfish
along a grey shore

brings to the fore
of the mind the
image of oil spills
and debris.

But
how is it possible for
such dirt to give rise
to the glorious ecosystem
of schools of baby fish
swimming in the shallow
lapping of waves at your
feet?

The beauty of it
is unfounded - like
the baby inside you
that rests unborn.

Under Tall Palms

Under tall palms
the soft kiss of darkness
gives rise to
the type of
loneliness
that smells like
serenity

On Fear, Beloved

Fear.

The calling to
mobilise
the pieces of
our selves
that require
the most

comfort,
adoration,
respect,
tenderness,
fulfilment,
joy.

Both the catalyst
and the impediment
to a realisation
of wholeness.

Fear. Equates
no inaction.
Immob-
           ilised.

Baby, break
through, br-
eak thr-
ough, bre-ak
th-rough
it.

It is only a
calling of
you unto
yourself.

Tsunami of Love

When self-love
comes
expect a Tsunami

not a wave.
It will terrify you,

sweep you up
and
eventually

wash you
to
shore.

Monday 18 September 2017

The Internet

Someone gave me good advice today. All I could think while she spoke was "of all the infinitesimal situations that comprise life, how could it be possible to extract a sense of what is right to do in any given moment?"  
I listened, and nodded, and cried. Willing myself - so hard - just to be able to retain what she said: 
"Try to find ... the ability to seek out... lessons from past situations... can teach... right for you now..." 
"The diagnosis ... you are confused... use the internet... support yourself." 
"We wait for the feeling to appear... move us into action... seeking... the action can give way to the feeling" 
I know I won't hold onto this. It's not in my nature. The lessons life teaches me surpass articulation and concretisation. Still in this moment there is some solace. A glint. The internet.

Monday 11 September 2017

Lapses in Bright Intuition

"Get the fuck up
and get out
of my
house!", he
shouted -

without
saying any--
thing at all.

Inaction
mobilised
me into
nothing.

I let myself
wither, make
it to the cusp
of dying, only
to pick myself
up and wither
again.

I am not
made for this.
Perhaps life
would be
simpler if I
settled for

what I should 
have been.
But true faith
is in the
unseeing
of things -

it is im-
possible
to go back now.
Unsee all the
unseeing,
taking the leap
of faith

into a known
nothingness.
Is it faith if
you know
exactly what
it is?

I got up, and
got out. But
not because I
wanted to

bad habits over-
ride intuition
like the quiet
violence of
dreams

silently
rediscovering
the ordinary
in the face
of nothing

describing
a struggle
that is
endless -
ah, that is
ordinary.

That is ordinarily
yourself.

I got the fuck up
and got out -
  but I also never
   left.

Tuesday 5 September 2017

Earth's Spirit

Joy's rhythm
taps out of
my finger
tips
and
hips

Warm fuzz
erupts in
the centre-
fo-ld-s
of my belly

What is this
ecstacy -
explosions
of bright blue
and fuchsia
behind my
eyes

Majestic
creatures
on sleighs,
afloat but
moving

faster than
a thousand
light years
compressed
into a second

An eternity
this
  pure
     bliss
blessing
a soul

that moves
and
moves
and
       moves.

There is no
stopping
this spirit

from expanding
its tender,
          petals

to meet
on the
other side
of the
earth

and in
unison
rejoice

in the
soft song
of

true,
   true,
oh so true,

love.




Monday 21 August 2017

Of Inaction and Thirst

I long to write, about feeling, about living, about yearning, but I am stuck. I fail myself on the regular, unable to use the algorithms of language to translate the mish-mash of emotion twirling themselves around in my belly into anything comprehensible.  
I want to be able to use words to reach out, connect to, touch others. I fail. Repeatedly. What is left is complex isolation and an inability to articulate even the most basic of needs: I am thirsty. I haven't had a drink of water that has nourished me in a long time. 
How do I get up to get the glass?

Sunday 13 August 2017

Standing Naked (Ode to Lucille Clifton)

I stand
butt naked
in my house
(for my house
is the earth)

Tits raised
to the ceiling
(sky)

Aware that
they can see -

that they
pull their

eyes out (both in
awe of and in shock
at)

The site of a
brown woman
that is

un-ash
           amedly
her. self.

Three apexes
(one inverted -that
one at its own
APEX)

will turn them on
their head.

Turn them mad.

Tis 'bout time
 the tables turned.

Wednesday 9 August 2017

The (Re)Birth of Desire

I remember 
a time
where 
touching 
them (men)

held all
its allure
in it being 
a forbidden
fruit

when it 
was the role
of all the 
women (in
me and 
before me)

to be seen
as coy, shy,
innocent.

I was not al-
lowed to feel
the vivacious
raw of my un-
becoming

lest it 
threaten
their ‘sanc-
tity’

Fuck 
(later I
will fuck)
    their
sanctity.

The only
sanctity
they hold

is the 
remnance 
of what 
they took
from me 
(all the 
me's)

when they
pillaged the
belly of the
holy 
mother.

Not
knowing 
that her 
Godliness
 is the tinder

that trans-
forms me
into a 
phoenix

that will
no longer
wait for
the feast
to be laid
out (and 
her name
called)

but will
just 
eat.


Sunday 6 August 2017

Lover

Lover,
   through the
melancholy in
my eyes you
would think it
possible for me
   to forget

The sensation
  of your tongue
on the hair
at the juncture
of my arm (pit)

Or the feel of
  your alive
fingers taut
around my waist

Moving me,
moulding me,
 with
  sudden urgency
to accommodate
the song you sing.

No! The language
  you speak.

The
language I first
  thought
you spoke with
your tongue.

Then listened
closer and learnt
  that you spoke it
with your
   being.

You, lover -
   intuit, inscribe,
   know -
the ancient truths
of (my) body like
a pilgrim
     returning home.

Say, lover.
Are you not
 a lover, but
   a witch
                instead?


 


The babies that bleed from me

Little formed
limbs and hearts
the size of
jelly beans

begin to beat
inside my body,
longing to come
into existence

into a life, they
know was made
specially for them.

But.

I stop them in
their tracks.

I say:
This is not
a life that
you deserve.

One of hearts
split into a
thousand pieces
a million times
over. Inevitably.

The breaking in
of your skull
regularly because
the world tells
you that you can
not - ever - be
enough.

The hollowness
in you brain
awarded to you
by the lottery
of chemistry.

A life of
accidents
    and
chance.

No.

You don't
deserve this.

You deserve
so much more:

Eternity.

Tuesday 1 August 2017

Sunshine

I lie bare
on my back
buttocks
kissing the
sand in
two separate
and sensual
places

My knees
spread open
just wide
enough to
let

the glory
of my
vulva

shine out
into
the world:
that shuns
it,
forbids it
de
    nies
its
   existence.

It glows,
gloriously,
as its
    fo-
        lds

yield to
the invisible
warmth and
caress of the
sun.

It comes
   alive
and all
of existence
  comes
to attention
at its
   center.

This
   is
where life
has always
    begun
and where
   pleasure
is eternal

like the
 dying of
the day

sun to
the
   holiest
of
   holies

is only a
promise of
 a new
  beginning.

Wednesday 26 July 2017

Little Mirror II

It is not that if we are willing to give love unconditionally 
that we will be met with reciprocation 
by those whom we want to give unconditionally to.

It is that if we give unconditionally,
those who see themselves as worthy of their own grace
will open up to the gift of accepting the joy we want to give.

Projections

Your deep 
lush eyes 
stare 
right 
through me.

The distance 
between us 
grows ever 
                     larger 
with my 
yearning.

The perfect 
sym - metry 
of 
your 
face 

reflects 
      the 
imperfections
          of my 
soul.

Save me. 
     Nourish me. 
         Nurture me.

Allow me
    this small 
victory 
    so that 

I may be 
at peace
  with myself. 

The Prisoner


Let me go
set me 
free

This is 
not 
who I am

This is 
not 
who 
I want 
to be.

I am 
enslaved 
by you

but I want 
to break free.

Let me go, I say.
Let me be.

Little Mirror

I don't think life teaches those who hurt us lessons, like: they will learn of what they missed, regret and melancholy will dawn on them, they will come around to realising what they have lost. Instead, I think life quietly holds up a mirror and if we look closely enough we will see the parts of ourselves we have tried to give away, reflecting back to us - ready for the taking. No, there is no lesson learnt by those who - intentionally, or unintentionally - hurt. There is no moment of awakening for them to the loss that is you. There is only ever you. And what you can bring to yourself. Always. 

Tuesday 25 July 2017

La Loba

What is this
feeling
pour-
        ing out of
me?

I feel it run
threw the
sinews
at the back
of my thighs

flooding my
calves with
thick
currents.

It sits behind my
rib cage and
sings ever so
loudly

calling out a
desire for life
to the
universe.

It turns my
stomach
into a pit
of anticipation

only for the
rawest
tenderest
beauty.

It fears not
the ugly
nor
the grotesque

but welcomes
them to rest
beneath the down
of my lip.

It screams
and howls
from within,
madly into
oblivion

and passes
its energy
on into
life
ad infinitum.

This. Is a
wolf coming
home.

It is
nature's
truest
form of
love.


Seasons

When
you
touch
me

the seasons
change.
Little green
leaves fall
from the branches
of my trees

and are
replaced with
a breeze
blowing through
where they lived.

Birds perch
on my edges
for
a fleeting
moment

and then fly
away
as if they
were never
there to
begin.

The sun rises and
sets and as twi-
light
engulfs me
for a second

I know -
all
is well.


Monday 24 July 2017

Life's Lessons

Life
has taught
me
  that
        i

am not
        above
hurt,
     pain,
regret,
    addiction

needing,
    wanting,
ignoring,
    feeling

losing,
    longing,
desiring,
    burning

raging,
    aching,
fuelling,
    hurting

faulting,
  drowning,
crying,
  and even
         surviving.

    Life
has
    taught
me
that
        i

am
      nothing

and in being
nothing

I am
everything

(grotesque
   and
 glorious)

all at
once.

Friday 21 July 2017

To be or not to be? Why we never question monogamy.

It's been a while since I have written a rhetorical piece. And I have nothing in particular to write about now except a deep-seated awe for the process that is life.

With no conscious effort, in the aftermath of the breakup I had, I've been thinking long and hard about one thing in particular: monogamy.

To set the scene, coming out of a relationship makes one realise that it is literally impossible to have all your emotional, physical and spiritual needs met by one person. I look at the people in my life who are in monogamous long term relationships and while they work some of the time, there is inevitably something missing in the way of happiness and satisfaction that does not seem to be missing from the lives of the friends who have healthy single lives. These monogamous friends say that in order to make a relationship work, there has to be a lot in the way of compromise. Compromise on goals, careers, lifestyles, time, and space.

This is the thing though, I am not so sure that this needs to be the case.

From the time we are born, we are taught to aspire to having a single partner to spend the rest of our lives with. And so much of the time, this is purely an accident of timing. As illustrated in Master of None, the person you happen to be with in your mid-twenties ends up being the person you are socially expected to spend the rest of your life with. I don't know about to you, but to me, this seems like a heavy burden to place not only on a person, but on a relationship.

I don't want to pass judgment on anyone's relationship, but the thought of being with a single person for the rest of my life is suffocating. Extremely suffocating. There is so much beauty and connection to be explored in this world, and in this age of globalisation and increased connectivity it seems so limiting to choose a life path that forces you into turning to a single person for the majority of your needs.

Look, I am not saying that monogamy can't work. I am saying that it is unfair to expect monogamy of everyone. People are so varied in their preferences and their personalities, and just like we have different tastes in terms of other things in life, we may have different preferences in terms of what we expect from relationships.

The strange thing to me is how rarely it seems that monogamy is questioned in modern society. Yes, there is a growing community of polyamorous people but this is still so small and rare, and the territory is so unchartered that many people are afraid of it. What else perplexes me is that there are many people, especially neoliberals, who question every aspect of life, including purpose and the existence of God, yet somehow turn a blind eye to monogamy. These very people are serially monogamous themselves. And while they appear happy I wonder if they truly are.

I can only write from my own experience, and what I am writing here may not be universally true but  after much thought on the topic the only thing that makes sense to me is the line from Kanye and Jay Z's no church in the wild. Basically:

Love is cursed by monogamy. 

And I'll tell you why. It is because a society that imposes monogamy on it's members is one that ignores the varied needs of different types of personalities. I have a friend, a really good one, who has never had a serious romantic relationship. She is single, she is happy, her needs are met and she is thriving. She actually has no desire for the emotional intimacy of a relationship, and that is something that should be respected. Instead what we find is that society perceives her to be dejected and incomplete because she does not have a partner.

I'll use myself as another example here. I am a lover. I love human connection. And after having tried it a few times, monogamous relationships simply do not work for me. Because by their very nature they are limiting on the kind of intimate connections you can have with others. These connections need not only be sexual. They can be cerebral. They can be spiritual. But for some reason, monogamy dictates that you can not, SHOULD NOT, love another.

It makes no sense to me that the human heart is designed to love only a single "soul-mate".  I yearn for the day where we are able to honour connections with multiple people, lovers, friends. And have something beautiful with all of them. Logistically, the path for this to work is polyamory, and a lot of work is required in the way of managing people's feelings and setting ground rules. But as a good friend of mine said to me, for any relationship to work there needs to be an uncompromised level of respect and space.

To me this was profound. I also perceive the type of person that is open to such an arrangement to be a relatively emotionally evolved person. One for which petty jealousies are not a serious threat to their own internal happiness. A person who understands that if their a partner is connecting with another human it does not preclude them from their own special connection with someone else. Wouldn't it be a beautiful world, if we could all allow each other the space to connect so freely? If this were the norm?

So why then do we not question monogamy. I think there are two answers, the first is fear and the second is comfort. We are too afraid to upset the status quo and in the complexity that is this world existential angst is largely relieved by the notion of having "someone to share it with". Secondly, this is comfortable as it provides a cushion upon which the rest of one's life is rested. That is, with monogamy as the norm, and a joint path to navigate individuals bypass the harder task of trying to find meaning to a life that might not have one.

Untitled

Energy.
Unbridled
loyalty to
your tribe.

Wide
eyes - a
girth greater
than the
ocean

The depths
of your
soul hollowed
out in submission
to a bloodline

Not made of
blood but of
raw
electricity -
blue. And white.

Open to longing,
to
love.
Giving, so
effortlessly.

Spending.
Like a well that
will never run
dry -

watering. Oh,
watering and
endlessly tending.

You are all things
of beauty rolled
into one.

The line of life
and light runs
through your
bones -

static current.
Warm and fluid.
Flowing for an
eternity.

Dear one,
What is this?
What is this
I see?

Wednesday 12 July 2017

Death meet me.

I remember the first time I was no longer afraid of dying, it happened after decades of walking around with an iron clad chest, held tight with thick wrought links, wrapped around me in a concatenation of fear. Each link soldered together in the language of angst: locked, unbreakable. Through the girdle; unable to move, too afraid to think, too nervous to be
Be. 
I stepped outside on a bright day, and the canvas of a mountain appeared before me - in the distance - coming no closer with every step I took. The gray peak accented with valleys of feral green, which seemed no larger than a handspan of shrubbery. It held eons of wisdom in its unwavering existence. And as I put one foot in front of the other, in no extraordinary way, the chain cracked and fell to the ground. Unremarkably I knew I could die then and there, and it would all be okay. 
Existence needs me not, but nor do I need existence. 
I am free. Death meet me.   

Monday 10 July 2017

Skin

Smoother than
finely sanded
marble dipped
in thirty-six
glass glazes,

softer than the
down beneath
an arctic fox's
tiny chin,

saltier than a
kiss from the
ocean.

Bejewelled with
sand spots - so
many that they form
their own intricate
language

and speak in tongues
as rounded tips lol
over gentle peaks
and taut dimpled
troughs.

Ah!
     The slow song
           of
                ecstacy -
Your Skin!


Sunday 9 July 2017

Split-stream

A stream
split by
stone

creates
the illusion
of two -

only momentarily.

The Colony

Before the shadow
of the mountain
casts over
the city

and
those who
were robbed
of their land
find bridges
to call theirs
for the night.

Before
the sewers
give birth to
infested rats

to roam
the streets
perilously
sweeping up
dead birds
and trampled
cigarette butts.

Before dawn
breaks and the
first taxi hoots
leaving the Grassy
park station.

There is
room for
an eternal
expansion of
my heart
into this
place I call
home.
My heart
is a tiny
deserted
house
on a desolate
beach.

You came by
on a sunny
day and
opened its
shutters.




Saturday 8 July 2017

Oh Mould! My saviour.

They tried
to make
it work
between low
rentals, and
four young
babes in
bathtubs
surrounded
by moulded
silicone

peeling off
edges, akin
to the edges of
their life. Peeling
away, bit-by-bit.
Slowly, slowly.

Dirty kitchen
floors help their
feet. White bread
with tomato sauce
keep them alive.
But what existence
is this?

I'll tell you. It
is the existence
that thousands
try to call life,
no, home.

For the eight
young legs, it
was home. Too
young to
carry shame -

in the embryo
of sanctity
threatened
regularly by
the leather strip
calling, calling,
intermittently
from the sjambok
in that kitchen
corner.

Also held up
by stained linoleum-
eye peering, waiting,
for the moment it
would come alive -

strong leather. Un-
breakable. Break-
ing. Bending. -
snake like rapid
strikes and a crash
that would only
resound
as far as the
light bulb hanging
from a single wire in
the middle of the room

sometimes at night.
Sometimes in the
middle of the day.
Sometimes after
too many unimpeded
morning laughs, by
the four mouths

playing with reckless
abandon on the
cracked concrete that
bled out from the
creaky kitchen half-
door.

One day the peering
eye left. It was never
to be seen again - on that
day the bathtub dislodged -
the mould penetrated the
cement, and the tub fell
apart. A large crack down
the enamel middle.

Six became three a side
became two, became
one.

And life continued-
            Solitary.


Friday 7 July 2017

The Gods of Compassion

Your
existence 
is porous
and 
alive

from 
every
inch of 
you
compassion
is radiantly 
diffused

When 
you lift 
your chin 
to look at 
the sun

glory is 
reflected 
back 
boundlessly -

For your Heart
is like no
Heart.

It breathes 
salted mist. 
Crystalline.

And those
beads of
mist

crystallise 
into gems
of mercy

that pour 
from 
your 
fingers

endlessely 
into the 
cup 
of life.


Wednesday 28 June 2017

Peony

Is a
    peony a
            rose?

Does it
         matter?



Sparrow

She stormed out of their shared apartment, keys to their flat between her sweaty fingers. The sun beat down on her shorts clad legs from its zenith, drying tears in sticky limbo on their way to her chin. She was disoriented by the fight she just had with her sister, about her dad's lung disease, need for a transplant and decision to be buried immediately without a funeral if things went south. "It's selfish of him, it's about our closure, not his!", she screamed. Now she stood in the middle of the hot tar road, amidst a collection of Dutch-Victorian houses and quickly stumbled onto the side walk as a car approached from the short-right to her rear. She sat down in the dirt, next to a succulent garden - the overly manicured, yet unnoticeable suburban type - and her eyes fell to a series of three stones next to the pole of a street light.  She was taken back to the day she left the flat with her last boyfriend and they found a baby sparrow, freshly dead, fallen from a nearby nest. Soft tears filled her eyes then, and they decided to dig a tiny grave in honour of its short lived life. She picked up the soft body and handed it to him before he placed it in the shallow hole. They marked it with the three stones they used to dig it. Now, as the sun blinded her, she looked up, paused for a moment and patted her cheeks before walking back up to the flat. A smile on her face.

Pepetrator

Kin -

Cast
webs of
wrought
iron links
over you by
spewing
garbage
from their mouths.




Catharsis

Sometimes
carthasis
   crystalises
out
of insufferable
moments of
   time dragged
           on
and a distracted
mind
         trying to
            pull
all you are
   out
 of the
present.

Thursday 22 June 2017

White Light

My soul, a
wisp, met
yours.

They entered
a storm in
which they
twirled together,
but were
pulled apart
by force.

After seeking,
searching,
pining and
resigning

themselves
to a fate
lost
in a white
wilderness.

They grazed
passed each
other, adrift.

And reunited
one night
a thousand
and five
years later.

To begin
their
eternity

in unison.

Tuesday 6 June 2017

Surviving life - as a survivor

Navigating life as a survivor of abuse is one of the hardest things any individual will have to live with. This TED talk for instance highlights how childhood trauma has knock on effects on the rest of one's life, with specific focus on the medical consequences thereof.  It also highlights how we box off abuse as a social or mental health issue where it is something that is truly all encompassing. I write from the perspective of someone who has lived through intense childhood trauma, but the same logic applies to survivors of any type of abuse - emotional, physical, sexual. 

Basically, with abuse, what happens is that a survivor is primed to exist in fight or flight mode. They are as a result of their experience, untrusting of the world and of people's motives, and this is compounded by a profound sense of internalised blame and a strong imposter syndrome. This means that they see their circumstances as if it is something they had a conscious choice in creating, and see their successes as flukes that are not attributable to their hard work.

With these as the backdrop of what it's like to live as survivor,  rising above the challenges of daily life requires so much more. For instance, daily tasks become fraught, since the base level of trust in other people that survivors have is much lower. There is an anxiety that surrounds interacting with people they do not know intimately,  in fact just meeting people on their level requires an extra degree of trust that takes a substantial amount of emotional energy to fork out. Emotional energy that survivors do not have, since positive emotional space is in short supply because of trauma.

The crux of the matter is that being a survivor never ends. In other words, no matter how you cut it, your conditioning in childhood and learnt behaviour that the world works through the absence of trust follows you throughout your life. This is not to say that you will never trust people. Instead, what it means is that to learn to trust takes longer, or can manifest by lapses in judgment. There are behavioural patterns learnt that basically keep manifesting themselves in  the life of a survivor over and over again.

The most common way that these patterns manifests can be illustrated by the trope of a woman who subconsciously chooses an abusive partner. I am not sure this is because of an inherent belief that she is unworthy of love and respect as much as it is because this is what she has been conditioned to understand love and respect to be.

Ponder on that for a second.

Can you imagine how hard it is to break the cycle of abuse when your internal reality is one in which being treated in a way that undermines your humanity is what you have been ingrained to understand as normal. This results in a threshold for triggers that is both lower and higher than that of the ordinary person. Lower in the sense that because an ordinary person would not have been exposed to abusive behaviour (especially emotional abuse) when they are confronted with it, it goes over their head and they are somewhat immune to it to a certain extent. The trigger threshold is also higher because of uncertainty surrounding when trauma is going to strike - there is a constant anxiety over being attacked and this makes interacting with ordinary people all the more harder. 

This complex existence is reality for survivors. Here are a list of spaces where they come out most strongly. In these spaces the abused person is at a disadvantage because the power structures of society do not recognise or even legitmise their internal struggle. 


  1. The workplace. See this post
  2. The most intuitive - romantic relationships, this can be long term relationships or short term flings. In the former it can be the case that the abused person settles for a narcissist or a person that either explicitly or subtly undermines them, and in the latter it is a series of associations with partners who undervalue the person and lack respect for them. 
  3. Friendships - learning who to trust, and how much to open up to friends can be challenging for a survivor. You never know whether they will truly accept you once they come to learn of your history, and while you should not care, it is almost inevitable that you do. 
  4. Social situations with acquaintances - social anxiety is a common response of survivors. 
  5. Authority - Survivors, of abuse, and especially emotional abuse and neglect, struggle with authority since it was an abuse of power in the first place that led to them being victimised.

With almost every part of interacting in daily life jaded by the shadow that is being a survivor, the hardest part about all of this is that it is a lonely process. South Africa is a nation of serially abused people, in particular black people, women, and children. It is almost debilitating realising that after a life time of letting people treat you a certain way, that there is something not right about it, and that the power lies with you to make them stop or to walk away. How can you walk away when at the base of what you rationally know is the right way to be treated, you have a belief that abuse in its complex forms is almost normal? It's not like you are choosing it in the first place, you didn't ask for the trauma, you didn't ask to be inflicted with the harm that caused you these patterns. It then becomes even more debilitating realising that there are patterns in your life perpetuating the cycle of abuse - and at this point it turns into self-loathing. You hate yourself for allowing this but again, you don't know any different. 

All the while the rest of the world is oblivious to this. The person inflicting you with the pain is probably unaware of it too, and there is almost a guarantee that their behaviour is not going to change. Your friends and family can probably see the pattern perpetuation, and are only too quick to tell you that you need to leave or change but don't care to acknowledge that no matter if you do leave, the propensity for you to keep manifesting it in different ways will carry on throughout your life. 

This is where therapists and cognitive behavioural therapy come in. But not everyone can afford this, so what are those who are without resources supposed to do to cope? And for those who do manage to afford it, it is often the case that therapists can be harsh and "hold up the mirror" without any true understanding of how all encompassing this existence is. 

In the end the only true remedy for it is self-love and self-care, but as a survivor living with a heart that is perpetually tightened in your chest, it is impossible to know how, when or where to start with this. And the cycle turns inward. You become both the perpetrator and the victim. And this is the hardest part to live with. I wonder, how do I survive knowing that this is what I am creating for myself? Even if I see a pattern, it makes me feel helpless, resigned to a fate that will keep me in emotional turmoil? For me, as a survivor I will say that there has been no catharsis - there's been denialism and judgment by friends, spending of large amounts of money on therapy and only a slow improvement over time, but always a coming back to the same repetition over the course of a life, mired by periodic slips into depression and a hope - blind faith (ironic as an atheist) - that things will get better eventually.

Saturday 3 June 2017

Reflection

Face, teeth, mind,
hair, hands, nails,
eyes - pupils -, gait.

Perception fused
 with deception. Delicious
reflection, of a
  connection

that is empty.

Ghost

I want to have
   all of it with you.
      But only because,
I can't have any of it.

What is this
   affliction? Confusing
my mind (and soul) into
  not knowing if it is you I want,

or simply
    your ghost?

Glory

I want
  you to share
in my
   glory.

I am laying
   out a feast
and I want
   you to come
eat.

Summer Concerto

Your
    gaze, pierces
me in soft and sharp
    places, perfect.

Summer night
     shadows somersaulting
in the juncture of my
     thighs.

Oh, pick at the
      strings of my violin
with your
      pretty bow, tonight.

Thursday 1 June 2017

Fatima

Born in the
green hills
of Valencia.
(No, not Spain,
just Nelspruit).
Her mother, a
shop clerk, her
father the manager
at the local Spar.

Her life was the
envy of every
teenage girl. Wild
parties, sex at fifteen,
early birth control
that made her
skinnier
than the rest.

She was a little bird,
her sweet voice cooing
to the whims and needs
of the men around her.
A particular favourite
of every lascivious uncle.

She met him at fifteen. They
fucked upstairs in his parents
mansion. His father was a
pharmacist, so he stole a
number of drugs for them to
experiment with.

When he left to Jozi, for varsity
she found solace in the maternal
side of her family. Then her
own mother was the first to go,
kidney failure. It tore her apart,
but she was redeemed when
the big city killed his spirit
so that he came back that summer
and they were wed.

She lived in the same mansion they
first fucked in. Thinking she was the
beneficiary of a higher gift, the luckiest
girl in the world, the apple of her father
in law's eye. She cooked meals during
the week nights, and in the week days
stood behind the counter at the pharmacy.

There was only one way they could
entertain themselves on weekends,
and that lasted, until like her very own
mother, her kidneys gave in, and she
was eaten alive.

Wednesday 31 May 2017

Nimbus

Glossy
sinuous locks
frame your
pointy little
face in
thick black
wisps.

Oh, what I'd
give to run
my hands
through the
strands of
your soul.

Friday 26 May 2017

Mirrors

Entering a hologram
of perception 
and morphed 
deception.

There is only
one way to 
know what is real.

That is: to touch
(palms to thighs), 
to breathe (nose
to abdomen), and to
feel (in the way
only you can) for
your own
heartbeat.

The Falsitude of Creating

Is it possible to 
write and not be
a thief? Or is the 
very act of existing
stealing from the lived 
experiences of others -
not always those 
brighter or bolder, but
those dull and dimwitted 
too. Stealing. From those 
with everything. And 
stealing, even more, from 
those with nothing.

Perhaps this is the true
nature of the world.
Theft. By each and for 
each. Until we sit together
under a common blanket
of creativity - each weave
threaded by yarn stolen
from her neighbour's wheel.

On the Anniversary of My Death

The 19th of May 2002. I died a
certain death. You killed me. You,
the man I didn't trust but had no
choice except to. You broke not
only my skull but my spirit and my
soul, for at least a hundred years.

Today. The 19th of May 2023. I sit
adjourn to you. Why? I ask myself.
I don't know. I'm almost pleased at
the thought of your death, I think. No,
I correct myself. I couldn't be. I still
don't know that you weren't pleased
about mine.

What I do know is that neither of us
asked for this. You didn't want to break
my skull nor do I want your chest cavity
sawed open.

The difference is you made a choice. I
was endowed with a burden, that came
wrapped in a deceptive silk bow. In it
three adjoining parts;
                         forgiveness,
                                  responsibility,
and the smallest but strongest called
                                                          love.

Tuesday 23 May 2017

Learnt Language

After being
held
captive
for
an entire
existence.

You've become so
accustomed to
the pain
that instead of
wailing a
grimace forms
on your face
as natural
as a smile
and tension
pulls
the corners
of your
mouth closed.

The whip cracks
skin open and
a sting
permeates. Blood
barely
drips
before the
next crack strikes -
Effortless. Fluid.

Whip-pa.
Whip-pa.
Whip-pa.

All of a
sudden you
realise that
the lashes
and lacerations
are at your own
account.

It's not a betrayal
of your
body unto
itself.

But the only
language
it's ever
learnt
to speak.

Thursday 18 May 2017

Wings

So much of my
energy,
life force,
chi,
is used
in daily combat
against
the oppressor.

What would happen
if for one second
I expended all
that energy
inward.

How high would I
soar
until they
decided to clip my
wings and have me
plummet to
the ground?



What's in a name?

Mine. Has
three syllables,
whose sounds
combined
are my soul -
who I've been
since birth.
Maybe
even before.

They, can
easily say
things that
define them
like:
aveugle 
and
sourd. 

But still
dare
to get me
wrong.

Oasis

- Within -

Darkness. A room,
a field, an expanse of
black. Inside it a
certainty, that things
are not okay. Never
will be. Quick
sand at the center, a
box - made of the bones
of ox. Without a
key. Demons
dance inside it. All
night
and rest in the day.

- Without-

Sitting in the
inflection of the
valley. Calves
folded in, neck
extended over
knees. Spiritual tremors
overtaking breathing -
involuntarily. Hair flowing
upside down into
the pool of salt water
streaming out of
eyes.

Mountainous walls
rising above in
all directions. Bare back
facing the distant,
unreachable sky. Not
being broken. Just
being.

Dew gliding seamlessly
out of glossy ducts
into the swirl of vivid
algae kissing legs.
The box one with
the pebbles - a granite carbon
complement - softened and
smoothed over eons by
gentle streams of
water.

An animal. Nursing its
wound. Naked. Bare bottom
folded into a an acute hug
of self-preservation. Blinking
and realising that
no matter how hollow
or cold or dark the box is.
It is a part of this oasis:
the hideous marriage
of demons, mountains,
quick sand, the sky, ox bone,
salt water and human blood.

This. Oasis.
Here. Where
the animal
is abundant. Rich.



Monday 15 May 2017

Mural

For at least nine years,
he stood, in his woolen
hat at the concrete corner
junction asking strangers
for money. His dwarfism,

may have been the reason
for his struggle. Or just one
part of the injustice of being
born coloured into this sick
society. The years embedded

wrinkles onto his eyes. And 
now he's become immortalised,
by a mural in Oranjezicht.

Thursday 11 May 2017

Magnificent Splendour

Splendour. Tiny waves lapping - not crashing - against the shore. Toes digging deep into grainy sand. Sweaty hands on the face of a rock, knees bent, body heavy. Squinting in response to the glare as a large glint of sunshine pokes through a thick grey cloud. Splendour. Not a child's laugh, but the throaty giggle made when defenses come down in front of a lover. The sound of the black keys piercing gently through the white when a piano is played. What a daisy looks like when held up against the blue sky. The sun bouncing off your best friend's eyelashes. Sharp canine's sparkling as you throw your head back in laughter. Splendour. Sensory seduction at the birth of spring. Swallows in a swoop above pylons at dusk. The light touch of your sand papery palms on my cheek. Splendour.

Gift from the Sun

Does it make you feel
powerful? This distancing
you do. Withdrawing from
the full brightness of the sun,
not to hide in shade - or rest -
but to enclose yourself in
a molehill of experience.

Don't you know that the sun's
sole purpose is to highlight the
vivid blue of the sea thrashing itself
against that one jagged cliff. Gifting
you with the luxury of watching it
from above - or immersing
yourself in it forever.


Monsters sans masks

My eyes
were stitched
closed
so that I could
not see
the perpetrators
of the wounds

A thousand
paper cut
lacerations
stung
deeply -
everywhere

Confused -
unable to
make sense
of where they
came from

Not realising they
were there
until I felt
them come
alive with
the lifeblood
of a hot burn
days later

Bathing them
in salt water -
solitary - until they
would heal. It
became ritual -
Recovery

Then one day -
body
piercing all over -
My hands reached
up of their own
volition

And picked each
stitch carefully
from
my eyes - Pus
oozing out through
scabs and crusts

Lids heavy, my
retina adjusted.
The slime
coagulated
to the bottom

And for the first
time I saw their
truly
hideous faces
and set myself
free


Wednesday 10 May 2017

Ma (Grandmother)

Your cataracts blinded
you from seeing what
your son had
become. The torment
he inflicted on the
five women
in his
life.

Your big curly white hair,
wild and unruly, like your
spirit in the face of
late night screaming
matches.

The FBI are not after you,
mummy, he would say.
No-one is trying to steal
your identity.

My teenage
angst led only to
anger. Seeing you
as a burden.

I sit here, in wonder,
at the woman you
must have been.

What it took for you to
raise a house full of children,
a child yourself, a victim of
a bearded patriarch with a red
hot staff in his hand.

His death, leaving you with nine
mouths to feed, then their
premature deaths.
Rebellious entitled sons.

If only you lived another life.
I like to imagine your potential.
Then I remember that you
do. Through me.

Not for a second, do I forget
that my life started in
your womb.

Monday 8 May 2017

Letter to my (broken) beloved

I knew you, from before
the moment you tottered
taking your first steps
toward your mama. 

I followed you, a 
bird perched on your 
shoulder, chirping
as you picked up
the scissors to cut your
hair yourself. Little 
hands trembling. 

I held you. By the 
arms, stopping you
pulling brows from
your face, only moments 
after your first fight 
with sweet Adele. 

I never left your side when
you immersed yourself in the
joyous pleasures of young 
adulthood. Waiting for you
to return home so I could stroke 
your hair, and wipe the expired 
mascara from beneath your eyes. 

Then, when you stumbled over
your own feet into your first 
true love I drew arcs over 
your head with my toes,
making a halo for you.You 
never needed to look up,
but I was always there. 

And I’ll be there - I am 
here - now that that love 
has morphed into nothing 
more than the withered root 
of an orchard still attached to
beautiful but
already dead blooms.

Friday 5 May 2017

Rage (Part I)

Head heavy. Cranium
full of lead. Frontal
cortex bursting
with pressure.
Rage.
Fills my body.

Rage. From the
numbness in the tips
of my fingers to
the roots of the
ache in my lower
back.  Rage. Is the
sound of the scratched
echo that plays
inside me.

Rage. At the thieves
who've stolen my
emotional land. At
those oblivious
to the difficulties
of our condition.
At those who
dare to be
their authentic
selves without
consequence.

Rage. At the
injustice of this
affliction.
Rage. At it all.

Except
there is
no rage
towards
my melanin.

The Opening

I have
never
felt
a
vulnerability
like
this
before.

A listless
ache
behind my
eyes
and a raw
opening of
every
door
inside me.

People
wandering
through
the corridors
of my soul
while I watch
from below.
Mute.

Emptiness
follows their
footsteps as
I float
ceaselessly
through
space.

Wednesday 3 May 2017

The Rose Garden


I stood naked on the 
ground, feet sinking into
the sponge of the dewy
grass. He met me there
and sprinkled the seeds
around me, in a loose circle.
We agreed to water it
together

The sun set on that 
summer and the roots
that sprouted began to 
spread. with each sun
set and rise millimeters
of green veins were
added. We learned that 
for the roses to flourish 
they would need support
so we added a metallic 
arch over my head - naked 
body still enduring seasonal
shifts

With autumn came the first
buds, the bloom glorious.
Tiny blushing drops eventually 
spread open, filling my nostrils with 
the scent of molasses. My thighs 
and hips were covered in dustings 
of nectar as he pruned, watered
and tended to the new born
sprouts

It continued this way - and 
by the seventh cycle the archway
was laden with the weight of 
roses so dense that a single
flower
would weigh down 
the cup of your palm

As the garden flourished, I kept
looking up in awe of the beauty 
that we nurtured, only rarely ever
taking note of the large and heavy vines
that entwined around my waist 
and breasts, coiled around my feet -
cramping  my calves and aching my
back

It was a byproduct of the beauty, 
a cost at which the garden came. 
In the winter I even took solace in
the tight green shelter - it offered
welcome protection from the frosty cold. 
I was safe.

But all this time, I failed to see that
as the roses grew so too did the jagged,
thick and sturdy thorns. Blinded by the
velvet plush petals, it took me by surprise
how the thorns stealthily grew so large
that they barely noticeably pierced their way 
through my rib cage, puncturing my lungs.

Making it
              impossible 
                               for me 
                                          to breathe.