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

Semen on Seventh

While in the chill of Joburg's winter you now daily coil
cuddling in the imaginary arms of the partner only in your mind
Melville's 7 De Laan refuses to sleep with the rest of you
And in the thick of the night in the midst of half-closed eyes
Penises go on a voyage shedding off their usual ugliness
Standing erect competiting only with the straightness of the equator

And while you sit there hot water bottle on ur back
coffee mug in ur arm while the other caresses your thermo pillow
Listening to late night news which now sound the same since the last FIFA official left
While the newsreader tells us the price of crude oil like we care to think of its refined other
and monotonously emphasizes the strength of the rand against the Euro
Someone on Seventh is being deeply sexed

Well at some point sex tires of masquerading as love
Or else tell me how hungry people can make love on a pavement in winter
By now I know a homeless man's semen in the cracks by the pavement
Next time you see me just ask me how

Craig David and the time of my life

"Sometimes you feel the fight is over...." Today I woke up with exactly that feeling of giving up. Devastation. I am defeated. I am awfully depressed and although I may walk through every day as a winner, i am only human. I still can't stop listening to myself repeatedly sing Craig David's Rise and Fall. It's not the kind of singing that would make one come to terms with their situation or rise out of it, but singing all the same.

Today is one of those days where death looks easier than life. I hope that todayI get hit by a truck and wake up to nothingness tomorrow. I do not want to live anymore and I am sure the universe will forgive me if I die without having accomplished my life's purpose.

In my next life, I will remember to check my "To do List" from this life.

Curses, Madness and Other obsessions

Hello and Happy-No-Longer-New Year!!!

With my busy life on Facebook, I often forget to blog and just write those 420 charater-status updates on Fb as part of my random rumbling and grumpling. Today i will give this a try!

I want to do something I have not done before- at least not to strangers- like you and them. You must be wondering what's up with her now. No, don't run away with your mouth (that's the lastest phrase I have acquired from my Shona friend). This is not a resolution; I didnt make any this year- I'm still working on the ones I made in 1999 at the turn of the millenium and the year I sat for my O-levels.

So, yea, today i will talk about love. Strange ne? I know I know.

You see I find love -or is it  loving- quite strange! At the end of last year my very good brother and friend, Raphael, who happens to be Italian but loves his dagga and Black Label diet,  asked me to submit poems for a collection/anthology on Love and Romance. Your guess is as good as mine, I didn't and still haven't. I am not sure that I will (I promised him for the umpteenth time that I will when we met in Newtown last Saturday). Ok, where was I? Yes, writing about love is not something I do...well,  I am not sure if I love either.

That not withsatnding, I have decided to write about love today. I hope that no one reads this blog post!

Anyway, so by now you all know I practically do not have a love (aka sex) life. This is due to numerous, and I mean numerous, reasons that I still havent prepared myself to disclose (should I say yet?). So last night was quite something else (direct translation, I cant remember from which of my many languages).

 I left campus at around six in the evening and on the way decided to pass by my friend who has been ailing for a few days now. Between the two of us we can chat endlessly so I am sure that you don't expect me to remember what we were talking about before we found ourselves talking about my last ex-boyfriend ( I have had numerous boyfriends who luckily have all acquired a prefix: EX). Ok, now out of the many boyfriends, this is one oke I will never admit to having ever had dated. No, no, no! I have manged to convince myself that I never did and I will forever work towards convincing everyone else. Hell no!!

Anyway, after that chat we both agreed that my ex (let's call him W for the sake of characterization) is mad. To just put you in the picture, W is turning 30 this year but he has been carrying this self-importance for such a long time that you'd imagine he was in school with Kwame Nkrumah! He looks old and acts old (minus the wisdom part).

 Ok, I'd rather stop giving you this profile because even the thought of him makes my stomach turn! Did I tell you he's very ugly as well- ok, my granny said pple aint ugly; some of them just have interesting features- iiiiiii mar this one? (Sorry that was a 'native' subconscious moment)!  So, yea W has been completely obsessed with me for almost three years now and can't imagine me with anyone else. But yesterday, I mentioned to my friend that my once-upon-a-time-darling-ugly W told me that for as long as he lives I will never be with anyone else. He has kept his word. I have not been able to be with anyone else and even when I try things don't work out. My latest potential boyfriend just told me that he's gay! Well, not really my fault; he just happens to love other men which is completely perfect with me if only he could stop treating me like a stranger!

My friend's theory therefore is that W cursed me. W literally LOCKED me! LOL apparently there has been some serious 'African Science' going on in his life and I need to go see him for unloocking my potential (ok, this is from an advert)! So, now here I am thinking about Witchcraft, madness and love and cant tell the difference!

By the way, i just happen not to believe in witchcraft but this theory is quite fun. Will explain to you how it works once I am off FB!

Love n peace

RAILA ODINGA'S CALL FOR THE ARREST OF GAYS IS AN INSULT TO MY INTELLIGENCE :(

So yea there you have it. Raila has said it. Raila has validated the homophobic prejudices amongst most Kenyans. What Raila says holds a lot of clout in Kenya. When Raila speaks some people do not even pray on that day because "thus says Raila- the Lord".




It is saddening. Not just because of the struggles of the LGBTI community in Kenya but because of the systemic oppression of a people, citizens of a country by the same 'people' who need to protect them. It is this moralism that eats up contemporary society. It is this sort of 'universal morality' to which we all should subscribe that tears my heart. It is when a duality of 'good' and 'bad' sex is created by ignorant 'leaders' who do not themselves always fall on the 'good side of sex' that sexual 'deviance' is illegitimized. This is the 'trouble with normal', Michael Warner will tell you.



I do not particularly care about Raila's homophobia as much as I feel disheartened by his utterances on the arrest of gays to a community that is already (almost inherently) homophobic. For Raila to call for the arrest of gays makes a bad situation worse. Given the number of times that violence against gay and lesbian people are arrested and harrassed by both the police and millions of 'uninformed mobs' in Kenya, finally this violence has been validated by one of Kenya's most 'powerful' politicians.



I will not waste my energy ranting about Raila's utterances. I will not waste my anger on him because he does not even deserve a minute of my otherwise busy schedule but i will point out one thing (to whoever cares to listen): Calling homosexuality 'unnatural' is so I-dont-know-what century. i believe that it is during sex, whether queer or normative, that people become 'natural'. It is during sexual activity that people become more animal than human. They get rid of their inhibitions and sexual shame and stigma. After the activity then they go back to their 'unnatural selves' of separating the private from the public and trying to be 'normal'. An attempt at fitting in within 'norms' set out by Lawd-knows-who. It is an argument that can never hold.



This 'homosexuality is unnatural' claim is ignorant and utterly annoying. It is a construct of religion, the state and heterosexual normativity. It is a way of disciplining 'deviant' sexual bodies. It is way of thinking that enforces the dominant/ normative social order and it is way of excluding a percentage of the population based on patriachal rule.



I fail to understand why most Kenyans do not get it. With the new coinage of 'mpango wa kando' or South Africa's 'makwapeni', why do we still have heterosexual people who believe that their sexual orientation is 'right' and moral?? Why don't they think cheating on their partners is equally a form of sexual deviance? If we are looking for a society that is sexually moral, why is it important to keep pointing at Raila's uncircumcised penis anytime he starts a campaign? Why is it necessary for Raila to point out that his wife Ida is not complaining about his foreskin? Because whatever goes on between the two during sex is not anyone's business, right? Ok, so whose business is it when two women buy didldo's the size of a baobab for their own sexual pleasure? Why is homosexual pleasure a shame? Why is it stigmatized? Why is it punishable by your fucking-annoying law?



I will tell you why. it is because most of us grow up in societies that are supposedly heterosexual on default. We grow up with our families expecting us to bring someone of the opposite sex home. We are taught about sexual shame as toddlers. you are taught not to touch your genitals and they are 'christened' so that they do not sound so shameful. You carry between your legs a willy-nilly or a veevee, you are told. It is time for Kenya's utterly-homophobic community to realize just how equally 'shameful' their sexual lives are. It is time we learnt to stop this moralizing discourse and advocated for basic human rights.



If you think the LGBTI community wants to be 'normal', forget it. people should be able to carry their sexualities on their sleeves if that is what they want to do. They are not going to be ashamed of themselves as you are while driving through Koinange Street for a quick pick-up before you go home to your wife or husband carrying the 'odour of illicit intimacy'.



By the way, stop invoking the stupid Adam and Steve rhetoric because we all do not believe in the same god(ddess). And calling homosexuality 'Western/UnAfrican' is an insult to the intelligence of an African thinker.See More

Hands

Hands smooth and soft

Unscathed by life’s worries

Only haunted by ghostly fairies

Untouched by roughness

The roughness of the Black skin

Black skin born in the fields

Bred on bread from the worst breed of bran

Those hands I have touched

Those hands I’ve been rubbing recently

Hands that have held guns

Guns whose bullets have gone through hearts

Hearts of my little brother and drunkard uncle

...Listen to this deafening silence

And I have learnt to ignore the paleness of these hands

For I now know there is no Black and White

Only brown and pink, brown hands entangled in pink

And pink became pink when they peeled off brown

For years brown was peeled off and trashed in cans

Each can awaiting brown hands to pikitup

The soft hands whose bearer I now walk with

Hands that now hold me like a gun

Abreast, cocked up and set to shoot

Set to shoot at whoever dares the past

For the hands of our time to the raceless race belong