I speak with my vagina

You
See
there's been a bad smell
a disturbingly sour smell
almost like rotten amasi
stirred in cow dung and milk

a smell from my vagina

my vagina has learnt to yell at my gynae
about his flawed diagnosis
that emphasizes
the propensity
of candidiasis
for this specific
body part

and i have had this conversation
with my vagina
asking her
to seek
medical attention

no
i have become
a prisoner
and when your mouth
became my guardian
i was muted
and i learnt to
close my lips
caught between
the smells of
the daily toils
of your thighs

i am the vagina
and i want to speak
just as much you do
yell about
rape
violence
pleasure
desire
 
and once I have learnt
to speak
of sex
your mouth
will know
delegation
specialization
division
of labour
for i do the shit


and this smell
is the smell of queer intimacy
caught between
fluids
fluids that
I wont wipe
until i can
finally air my hair

Dear Body

These are the commandments in bullets
these demands you must ever obey
from now on

• always love your own
• and never hinder desire
• please let pleasure just be
• whether you
• ready or not
• in public or private
• please dear body
• learn to embrace yourself
• in ways no one else can
• and when you've unlearnt
• the rules of conformity
• wrap yourself in your hands
• and let your heart embrace
• that of your own

God is spelt with a Q

God has a tendency of rocking up at my door

God has been stalking me in my dream
And I have learnt to sleep with my dream
Cuddling
Caressing
Moaning
Laughing
Crying
With a dream



Then she woke up and flapped her bedding
Trying to get rid of strands of blonde hair
As if she was wishing away whiteness
But her dream was up and gone
Then she rushed out
Breathing
Panting
Panicking
catching up



But when I got to the door I could move no more
caught in a yarn of orange and purple wool
I stumbled and fell on my face
The wool looked like a blind cat with green eyes
And when my heart leapt out the cat's ears
I knew it was God
Wearing baggy jeans and kinky hair
And my heart shook my hand
Breathing
Panting
Panicking
With intensity



Fuck damn dyke the cat has been saying to the green eyes
her heart had learnt to wear pink lipstick and skinny jeans
and wool had become a web of butch dreams
caught up in mascara too heavy for coloured eye shadow
Cuddling
caressing
Moaning
Laughing
Crying
With God



I know you once had a cat named pussy
But entangled in your dreams she's been blind
And your green eyes aren't exactly white
So when God called herself love
Love became a dream
Your pussy dreamt of seeing again
So God started wearing hats
God dropped the G
G in G-string
and spelt her name with a Q
She has just woken up
Her dream is love
And she just learnt
That God is Queer

STROKING MY GRANNY

I used to look at my granny's labia at the onset of my puberty

I would stroke her clitoris while I bathed her in those days
I did not think that she'd be lesbian or even knew foreplay in her time
But i still looked at her two sunken lips and docile extension
I guess it was the curiosity that gave me thoughts on physical manifestations
the physical manifestations of womanhood, corporeality and embodiment
I used to wonder if this vagina popped out all her ten children
then why was granny's labia and its relatives so inactive now?
I used to think it was old age that had caught up with her or the freaking diabetes
You know the other day my doc said Diabetes does reduce sexual activity ?
But I know Diabetic women who still stand on Oxford Street as sex workers
But again is Sex Workers an appropriate term for women having 'transactional sex'
Or just a term trying to fit women's bodies into late capitalism and neo-liberalism?



My granny's labia perhaps should never be a topic for engagement
Not only because she's dead now but because it is a taboo subject
I don't think many women even talk of their own pubic hair enough
to warrant a talk of some body part that is now part of an ancestral whole
But I want to talk about what I saw in the bathroom so many times
This body that just wants me to talk because it is perhaps part of the 'memory project'
The memory project on which my thoughts have always coiled themselves
memories that often obscure my imagination and take priviledge over creativity
Of course my granny had nothing peculiar in her bodily geography
She would never have qualified for Georges Cuvier's exhibitions
Of Black women with 'pathological' steatopygia and elongated labia minoras
She would never (well, may be...) have been taken on a freakshow or museum in Europe
But her labia still took away my onset-of-puberty excitement about my own body



I know I lie a lot and by now you know I am lying about caressing my granny
I never stroke my granny's clitoris or even thought she'd be aroused while I scrubbed
But I always had many questions about my own body that I needed to ask
About what it felt to have a drunken man touch your labia everyday
Especially after your church meetings and women fellowships where women spoke like virgins
What was it like to have sex with a man half of whose brain was left in Burma in 1945?
A man whose bolts had become so loose after fighting a war he didnt understand?
I wanted to know whether it was that 'unwanted' sex that had made my granny's labia that cold
Whether it was all the hogwash of Christian teaching which conflicted her desire for sex
Teachings that made sex look too sinful for present day discussions of women's bodies
That should never be seen as evidence of sexual activity but as tunnels for posterity?
I really should have stroked my granny's labia then!

Lest we forget

Black Child's Pledge

I pledge allegiance to my Black People.

I pledge to develop my mind and body to the greatest extent possible.

I will learn all that I can in order to give my best to my People in their struggle for liberation.

I will keep myself physically fit, building a strong body free from drugs and other substances which weaken me and make me less capable of protecting myself, my family and my Black brothers and sisters.

I will unselfishly share my knowledge and understanding with them in order to bring about change more quickly.

I will discipline myself to direct my energies thoughtfully and constructively rather than wasting them in idle hatred.

I will train myself never to hurt or allow others to harm my Black brothers and sisters for I recognize that we need every Black Man, Woman, and Child to be physically, mentally and psychologically strong.

These principles I pledge to practice daily and to teach them to others in order to unite my People.

The Black Panther, October 26, 1968

by Shirley Williams

The Ashtray

I have not been as lucky as my other sisters
Not lucky in the sense of having an easy life
I know not a Black woman that kinda lucky
For our lives are often not smooth stretches
Something always happens along the way

A racist and lazy Ma'am at the washing machine
A rude and chauvinistic brother in the banking hall
A disillusioned and delusional teenager at the spaza
A judgemental and self-deserving madala in the taxi
And a nagging and dismissive mother-in-law at home

Now you  tell me what is so smooth in our lives
When the sticker next to my taxi driver speaks to me
'I am tired of women sitting in the front' it reads
And my mind immediately registers Black women
For it is my Black sisters and I often in this same taxi

So with this sticker my day begins, off the taxi into the world
And mine is a journey perhaps not by many travelled
I'd love to think that this pain that I constantly have to endure
Had nothing to do with my Womanhood and Blackness
But no, my circumstances are slightly doctored by my biology

Some of my sisters do not have it as hard I heard
But while I fight all forces oppressing  me and mine
I will lift up my head and on their behalf intercede
And at the Caucus I will let the ancestors decide
The fate of my overflowing wooden ashtray

if god asks me

If She asks me why i chose to die this way

If She wants to know why i could live no more
If She asks me why i did not choose a better way
If She wants to know why i got frail and freaky
I will tell her, i will tell God why

I will tell God why I silently sat weak and shaking
I will tell God how fear became so overwhelming
I will tell God when attacks of seizure became me
I will tell God where the thought of death all began
For sure God will want to know

And as I pass past St. Peter of this popular myth
I will look him in the eye and excuse myself
For I want to only speak to God herself
And explain this feeling in uncensored words
Certainly God must give me a woman-to-woman minute
But while I impatiently await that moment
I will cross the road at the red traffic light
Hoping some drunk hates me as much as his hangover
And in a momemnt of pity looks at me without looking
and with his long and wide truck loaded with steel
Scatters my brain by the sidewalk and slowly drives off
And if God asks me why, i will tell her