To all my BLACK trans sisters

I am done South Afrika I am done.

I am done land of the free. Fuck you all!!

My sisters are crying, my trans sisters are wailing

Weeping as you rape them, shun them and reject them

They are my sisters because I myself am trans

We are like the gutter of the marginalized and excluded

We let all your pain pass through us because we are one with the structure

And rain of terror never lives us dry but no one cares to wipe us dry

We live in the ghetto, mostly with no formalised education

No formal employment, no housing, no good health system or family support

We identify with the black plight because we too are black

And we know how the boot of white supremacy feels on our arses

We identify with the feminist movement because we are women

We experience the toxicity and violence of patriarchy in communities and relationships

We associate ourselves with the LGBT+ community because we are sexualised

Our gender identity is criminalised and punished by a heteronormative society

We advocate for the poor because we do not have capital to be capitalists

Yet we are forgotten. 

We are used. 

We are the ones you hate the most in all of humanity!

In your eyes we are not human, 

Yes even to you who fight for YOUR humanity

Are we just numbers? Identity number at home affairs

Where it is still incredibly difficult to amend our ids?

Are we just folder numbers in clinics?

Where we are met with health experts that know nothing about OUR biology?

Are we just faces to paint your protests inclusive and open

Seriously, tell us! Are we what you rally for your causes nothing more?

Fuck your Ubuntu! Fuck you Bantu! Fuck iSintu! And fuck uLuntu!

Cause you assume yourselves to have a monopoly of life

I am done. I am finished. Ek is klaar. Ek is moeg. Ek wil net rus. 

Fokof ndidikiwe! Ndithyafile. Ndiyayeka. Voetsek. Ndiyahamba

Ndiyahamba ndiyotyatyadula ndiyabula kwezi zitalato ndifuna ukuphila

A living I will make through means that will bring more judgement to me

Well I don’t have to literally be hustling in these streets

But I do have to look after one, one of my own, one of my people.

When there’s all the celebrated times of the year for each the marginalized group

I ask: When am I affirmed as a trans person? When is my freedom day?

When is my Africa Day? When is my TransDay?

My response to "Move on…"

What they hold sacred now I must esteem highly.

What they consider praise now I must sing.

And they call this equality, inclusion and transformation.

Nouns whose very significance I find meaningless.

Their essence, I notice in retrospect, is hollow.

Two decades and no one has taken responsibility of the atrocity.

It is us the victims who bared the brunt and pay the price.

Merrily their children get along with life,

With no need to be confronted with the past

And lack urgency to fix what they know their fathers broke.

Yes it us who are haunted by memories of bestial treatment.

It is the world around us that refuses to change.

We are told this but experience that, how is that still the case?

They sing a chorus: “Apartheid is over move on!”

For this reason they cannot understand why we are fallists.

So this I say “Move on”, strip the blinkers your fathers put on you

Don’t you notice that South Africa is a nation divided into two?

One of privilege and international power; one of poverty and perpetual servitude

“Move on” from your privilege and see how we are confronted by the shadow of the past

While YOU are faced with the deep sense of loss of the “good old days”

Let’s get this clear, our land is called what your forebears chose to call it

Streets bear names of men who killed our fathers and brothers

Corners are filled with statues of men who raped our mothers and sisters

Books tell us illustriously stories that we remember as nightmares

“You have no need to be afraid” Have you seen how I live, I am terrified

We are faced with two worlds in eternal conflict

Townships which would have any risk inspector shout “Evacuate immediately!”

And places of work, or learning, that are a taste of heaven on … … … Afrika

Have you consider that perhaps we cannot fully assimilate to your system

Because you have created these two conflicting worlds and forced us to live in them?

 “Move on” from your segregationalist thinking, the one you use when it suits you

Modernism, Universality and Globalisation are inevitable when they are agreeable

Multi-culturalism, multi-racism and multi-linguism you loathe when they don’t favour you

You are exposed, for the rear that you are, and the contradictions of this volatile system

You stand up swiftly against radical blacks but stand still when you see racist whites

“Move on” from your entitlement and remember you owe us

For the stolen land, forced labour, plundered riches and denied entrepreneurial opportunity

The bail out you received from the apartheid government was paid by me

From my trust fund, that my parents would have set up had they been given the chance

The education you received was subsides by my tea-girl grandmother’s wages

“Move on” from thinking everything is about you

You are nothing but a small fraction of the population

If you were truly African you would concern yourself with African matters

Instead again you reveal your identity by defending western ideologies

You are a walking irony, one with no identity even though you worship individuality

So here is what I say to you: no more will I revere your arrogance

Your art is a crime scene, a site of complicity and proof of your hate

Your knowledge is evidence of your limited ability to think beyond yourself

Your songs are nothing but meaningless notes full of vile rhymes,

At least to me.  So no longer will I entertain or be entertained by them

I intend to destroy all that you used to hurt me, all systems of privilege

I am a destructionist and a reconstructionist, in this I have expertise

I have perfectly implemented this policy, cauterising lies and decrypting truths

From your knowledge systems (are they?) and rebuilt myself from the ashes

Remember the words of Human: Your ideas will die as you live and mine will live as I die

Vulnerable talent

I wonder what happens to talent that is vulnerable.

Does it wither like a flower without shade?

Is it blown by the wind like leaves detached from a branch?

Or does it become idle and never realise its full potential?

What becomes of talent that is vulnerable?

Does disadvantage propel innovation or inspire despair?

How much stretching can the human soul take?

What becomes of talent that is challenged beyond its endurance level?

Does it not give in to the temptation of giving up?

What does Vulnerability do to the talent?

For years I have felt vulnerable

To being raped, kidnapped, neglected, orphaned

Lost, being away from home, having no choice but to run away from home

Being vulnerable to being not believed, to failing, to having a break down

To becoming sick, to being close to my early grave, to getting a disease,

To struggling to find love, to losing friends, to being disconnected from family,

To losing my politeness, to extinguishing my kindness, to doubting my ability

To losing hope, to forgetting my dreams, to having a dying vision,

To not receiving help, to being manipulated, to being policed (my thoughts and actions)

To having a skewed perspective, to being depressed and just being vulnerable

So what happens to people like me who are talented but are also vulnerable?

Do we have a space in this world? Is there a place for us to thrive in?

Is there such a thing as change? Can our lives improve?

Can we experience something different from what we know?

Life has been unfair to us, so why should we want to live?

Faith has only done so little for us, and much to harm us

So why should we believe so much?

I am yet to see what happens to vulnerable talent

Because I am an extremely vulnerable person and have talent

I shall see how my story unfolds.

I hope his talent will become a beacon of light, a torch bearer,

A success magnet, an attracter of fortune and a holder of love

Vulnerable talent, live on, go on and hopefully you will move on.

SNLV kaJolinkomo (written 03 April 2016)