Ja. Edition 14

#ed14

26 June 2017

Nosipho Nxele Broken Meditation

Osmosisliza Digital Mirrors

Ariana Munsamy Foundations

Editorial My father had a head. I could see it now that I had the mind to look for it. His head was shaped like a butternut squash. Perhaps that was the reason I had forgotten all about it; it was a horrible, disconcerting thing to look at.

—Simbi, My Father’s Head Phumlani Mkhize’s sculptures force us to think about heads; look for heads; recover lost heads; match heads with faces with heads; headshots head bangers, headaches headaches headaches. Angela Davis reminds us to remember the counterinsurgent Black slave woman whose “head was paraded on poles before her oppressed brothers and sisters”; a coin toss, fifty percent likely some tyrannical head of state; Fela’s Original Suffer Head and Femi’s Scatta Head; Yinka Shonibare’s headless sculptures, a queen stops at the neck – how to think about heads, with what body part, with a search engine, obviously, hey did you know, it’s the first prediction when you type in ‘head’, did you know they’re doing head transplants now?

Go to contributor page for more.

Wooden ‘Ja.’ by Phumlani Mkhize. Contact 074 300 1489 or phumlani_mkhize@yahoo.co.za for wood and cermaic work. Front page collage by Alyssa Naicker and back cover collage by Robyn Perros.

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Edition 14 Curator My little Jo’burg POPT(ART)!

Granny’s Flat Limbo Modern Family Digital Mirrors: Photography at Zakifo Broken Meditation Kaleidoscope Walls Poetry

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FEATURED PHOTOGRAPHY

Meet Edition 14 curator, Wairimũ Mũrĩithi

Words by Wairimũ Mũrĩithi Photographs by Kate Janse van Rensburg

A few weeks ago, our resident sub-editor and futuristic fashion icon Youlendree hosted a clothing bootiek. This issue’s curator, Wairimũ had worn her slay-us lipstick that morning, so her stars lined up and made sure nobody bought the funkiest green corduroy coat you will ever see in your life before she got it for herself. Wasting no time, Wairimũ put it on, and then sat down to have chats and chai with her homies. It made her feel like she had superpowers, which is why, when Dave asked her to curate this issue, she said yes. Buoyed by this new euphoria, she took a selfie in the golden light and sent it to her mother, the first one in ages. She knew what her mother would say, she always said it: Wairimũ Mũrĩithi (in her mother’s voice): You haven’t taken those things out of your nose yet?

Wairimũ Mũrĩithi (her own text-back voice): No…

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PROFILE

WM (still in her mother’s voice): And kwani it’s cold

whenever I feel like I’m copping out, running

until your lips have turned black

away from ways of knowing I fear are too big for

? What’s

happening with your hair?

me. Over the last couple of years, my anxiety has

WM (in her own voice): Haters gonna hate, mummy,

become more and more debilitating, making me

loveyoubye.

afraid of my own writing. Asking this question is a note to self to keep writing, keep imagining. I am

WM (own voice, serious face): So what’s it been like,

trying to start blogging again, my academic work is

curating Ja.?

a lot more flexible and personal now, I am kinder

WM: Now that I think about it, maybe I should have

to myself about speed and volume and production,

worn the coat every time I sat down to work on this

and – contrary to my previously unshakeable anti-

issue, because its superpowers has been a lesson in

outdoor ideology – I hike and cycle a lot these days,

confidence, as I often felt I did not know what I was

it’s helping me unknot my body and listen it. I’m

doing. All I know even now, really, is I had the time

not saying writing has become easier, it hasn’t, but

of my life – and I do not mean to romanticise this

my thinking about writing is changing.

because it has been quite a time, good and not so good – throughout the entire process, especially

WM: What work is shaping your world right now?

because I am still learning to take, seriously, the

WM: I’ve been trying to read Dionne Brand’s “An

world-building work of collaborative thinking and

Ars Poetica from the Blue Clerk” – trust, it’ll fuck

creating, and of feminist curating and archiving.

you up sis – and it has really unsettled how I read

So mostly, I am grateful for the work done by the

and how I work, and I think this edition might

people who submitted to this issue, and for them

have turned out pretty different if I hadn’t started

trusting me with their work. The responsibility was

reading it already. It’s a very necessary and timely

something else, heavy at times and threatened by

unsettling, I think, because if we are doomed to

self-doubt, but there has also been a bigger-than-

being custodians, producers and archivists of

a-sliver of saving grace for my own creative energy.

language, if we are to bear that responsibility, then we need consistent reminding to be conscious of

WM: How’s your own writing going?

what we need language to do so that we can be free,

WM: You know, I usually hate that question, but

and after that, so we may remain free, live without

this year, it’s become an important one to ask myself

destroying each other.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

My little Jo’burg Words and photographs by Trevor Molepo

My little Jo'burg is an ongoing project that focuses on the architecture forming a South African scavenger city.

This all started with a reluctant love affair, that quickly blossomed like the coming of spring, with the notorious inner city of Johannesburg. I've been capturing the city ever since to see and show exactly why I love it so much regardless.

It is the rawness of the people between the cracks of the buildings that make up the landscape of the city, the architecture that is exquisitely imposing on how one does things within the city. It's a different place that many do not venture and those that do have stories to tell. It is a different side of South Africa all together and it gives you a feeling that is different for everyone. Life here is vulnerable to all kinds of factors and everyone has their little Joburg.

I have my own little Jo’burg and here it is.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

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PHOTOGRAPHY

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ART

words and art by Joe Turpin

Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art! Pop(T)Art!

Words and artwork by Joe Turpin

“Pop Expressionism”, striking scenarios and direct visions are coined and held in stencils and emotive style.

This body of work has been influenced by representing alternative / neo realities, sometimes with surreal undertones, in a more ‘Pop Art’ manner. A deviation, but continuing allegory of my previous works looking at a imagery reflective of Johannesburg’s apartheid history and the nuances of postcolonialism. Influenced by the music, art, imagery and history of Johannesburg, ‘POP T(ART)!’ is a playful jab and more ‘fun’ approach to dealing with the conditioning of life in the streams around us."

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Modern family photograph by Jessica Hansen

PHOTOGRAPHY

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Digital Mirrors: Photography at Z Words and photographs by Osmosisliza

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PHOTOGRAPHY

Zakifo

at arms length catching millions of pixels for a memory in my pocket... touch, swipe, post , likes, friends , tag , followers, send, next, erase , touch, swipe, post , likes, friends , tag , followers, send, next, erase, touch, swipe, post , likes, friends , tag , followers, send, next, erase erase erase erase.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

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PHOTOGRAPHY

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ILLUSTRATION

Words and illustrations by Nosipho Nxele Three years ago I stumbled upon a Philosophy book called Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Decartes. Three years later I am reacting to how Decartes had felt. I have often found myself to be mistaken with regard to matters that I formerly thought were certain, such as Religion, Life, Politics & God. Therefore, ‘I resolve to sweep away all the pre-conceptions, rebuilding my knowledge from the ground up, and accepting as true only those claims which are absolutely certain.’ The use of color represents the dejection towards all that I thought I was. It also represents meditation, intuition, sensitivity, depth, freedom and imagination during the process of realising that all I have meditated on had been a lie.

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ILLUSTRATION

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ILLUSTRATION

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Illustrations by Diona Stevic Marinko 31

ART

Kaleidoscope Walls Words by Niamh Walsh-Vorster Photographs supplied by The Green Camp Gallery Project (GCGP)

Green Camp is a hidden wonderland of art that pops off of crumbling brick walls. The history of artwork that can be found there is an exciting archive for what contemporary art looks like and how it can be presented.

The GCGP made photos of some of these treasures made by local and international artists. From collectives such as Bambhino to the late and great likes of Delon Moody and Pastel HeART, the space offers itself as a new-age-type museum; with the work of artists many of us have come to know and love.

“We want to thank some of the hundreds of artists that have put their mind, paint brush, fantasy, blood, spray paint, tears, spirit, love on to the remaining walls of this ruin in transformation.” - GCGP People come and go into the space, sometimes unnoticed passers-by will leave their mark, “some art pieces we honestly don’t know who and when someone put them here.”

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ART

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SHO RTS TOR IES Collage36by Isabel Rawlins

SHORT STORY

The Room Words by Nathi Dass

I Her feet were tired when she got to the gates. She felt the pain but she said nothing. She wouldn’t let herself. Maybe speaking it will release some pressure — this possibility repeated itself endlessly through her every step, but she said nothing anyway.

The gates were large, gothic and cold to the touch when she pushed them open. Their creaking heavinessmade a noise that caught the attention of the guard, who scowled at her. He tightened his grip on his assault rifle, but still she went to him and asked where she had to go. He stared at her. His stonestill demeanour made her crumble inside but, still, she did not cry, would not, could not cry. She had done that too often before. Her inner crumble didnot actually worry her. She had gone beyond self-pity. He gestured to the right and she smiled emptily – a shallow platitude. The further she walked the more her stable path turned to rubble.

The room was faded lime green with severe metal tables and two white, plastic garden chairs. It all felt clinical. She sighed and sat, raised her feet to release the pressure. She took her shoes off and fingered the blisters that pulsed with puss and blood and pain. Someone knocked on the blackened window and she put her shoes back on. She sat poised. Fear and agony mixed and exploded ceaselessly in her. No tumult reached her lips.

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II He looked at the trees which stood stiff and naked. Every step he took was shakier than the last but he continued. He had to. He imagined himself sitting on his couch in his living room. He was calm. The warmth of this almost pleased him. He was almost immortal. But it was cold as he walked.

His lips were slitting and stinging. He licked his lips but it only made him more aware of the valleys and hills of pale, dead skin that scarred his mouth.

The building stood like a monolith.

The gates opened slowly and laboriously. The guard looked at him and raised his gun, shouting at the man. The man, who had been looking at his feet, stood still. Suddenly, momentarily, his body could not move. The guard kept shouting, now asking what he was doing and where he was going, and the man let it slip that he must go to the room. The guard walked up to him, scrutinized him and then stood at attention as he had been before. The man crept away.

The room was faded lime green with severe metal tables and two white, plastic garden chairs.

And a woman.

III He sat down and they stared at each other. They tried to speak, but spoke different languages,so alone but together, they just sat and kept looking at each other, and the room remained sparse and severe, lit by a phosphorescence tube that flashed indeterminately.

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After a few minutes, a man calmly came into the room,in perfect control of everything he did. He was wearing a brown suede suit and a black balaclava covering all of his face but his eyes but plain grey sunglasses with black lenses took care of that. He was carrying a box.

As he entered the man and woman jumped and tried to speak to him, but he only told them to sit down and be quiet. He did not speak either of their languages but the tone relayed the message, because they did as he coolly said.

With gloved hands – not a millimetre of this man’s skin was visible – he opened the redwood box. In it lay two 9mm handguns and an empty magazine each. He then dug in his pocket and produced four bullets. He put one in the magazine and one in the chamber of each weapon and, cocking each, gave the man and the woman their respective guns. He dropped his head, calmly, and closed the box, picked it up and walked out, locking the door behind him.

The woman and man looked at each other again, confused about why but in complete understanding of what had to happen. They stared into each other’s eyes, raised their guns and aimed for the opposite’s head.

He counted down in his head and was afraid that she would shoot first. She thought of her children.

No tears. Too scared to cry. To learned in life to beg. Now, at the end, with only four faded lime green walls, a metal table and two white, plastic garden chairs, they knew that they had nothing. All emotion fled their faces. Blood pulsed violently in their temples. Their mouths dried and their hands became sweaty.

And they sighed.

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SHORT STORY

Limbo

Words by Carol Kagezi photograph by Niamh Walsh-Vorster

They say time heals all wounds.

What they neglect to tell you is what happens when you get lost in time.

They do not tell you that dawn on Monday will turn into dusk on Sunday; Get lost in the days, unable to dance to the rhythm that governs the world.

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SHORT STORY

Just as my rhythm syncs with that of Mr Time, I am roused from a mid-afternoon nap by an influx of phone calls and messages from friends far away from Grahamstown. They are informing me that one friend, Noma* has been shot in the face, the other, Grace* has been arrested during a collision between the student body and the police force in the heat of the Fees Must Fall student protest.

I quickly find out that Noma has been taken to the referral hospital, Settler’s. With another friend, we rush to her aid and there we are met with the distasteful service the hospital has been so notorious of offering. I wait with Noma who has a bandage over her one eye. She is sobbing and persistently questions me about Grace’s whereabouts. I have no answers to her questions. I have questions that I cannot ask either because she is in no state to answer them.

The phones start again. The persistent buzzing as all concerned call and send messages through. They had heard.

I am stuck. Stuck in this present and a history I have been trying to bury for a while. Her blood-stained phone morphs into my own blood-stained phone the night Mama so suddenly met her creator. Her light blue ripped jeans, stained with her own blood conjure up the smell of Mama’s that stained my dark blue jeans, hands and black sheer shirt. Darkness rapidly chases daylight and it is night time now. Still, Noma has not yet received anything for the pain. The nurses promised to bring something two hours ago when they had stitched the cut just under her right eye that was a result of the impact of the rubber bullet on her smooth brown skin.

I wash my hands in the sink, just as I had seen the nurses do after she was stitched up. I wash them six more times – remember the blood-stained phone which I wipe seven times more. *Names have been changed 41

Granny’s Flat A memoir by Robyn Perros

SHORT STORY

I hated the way the leather car seats ripped the skin on my thighs like leg wax. The way the humidity coated my cheeks like Vaseline and the seatbelt buckle scorched my fingers like a pot.

I hated driving through the Durban CBD as a young girl. It was 1998. It was hot. And it was terrifying.

“Lock your door. Quickly!” my mother would hiss into the review mirror, shoving her handbag under the seat and sweating at every red light.

With my back ironed stiff in fear, I would watch the haze of concrete, palm trees and people blur passed the window. Jumping at the sight of every pedestrian that came close to the car. Sulking because I couldn’t open my window to smell the sea.

In the nineties, Point Road* was one of Durban’s most notorious streets. Renowned for drugs, crime and sex work; this was apparently not the place for pigtails and small-town kids like me.

This was the street where my Granny lived. “Opposite the ‘Nigerian’ shebeen” - according to Granny’s directions, to be exact. This was the street where pensioners were stabbed for the ten bucks in their purse and children were abducted by men in big black coats - according to Granny’s news updates at least.

Every time we arrived for our monthly visit to Granny, I knew I had to prepare my wrists for the grip of my mother’s hands. She would clutch them like a hockey stick and dribble me passed the men whistling from the side lines of the street. “Don’t make eye contact,” she would remind me, while I marvelled at how she managed to glide like a goddess in her cashier’s work uniform.

In silence, I would run, watching her fat heels pound the concrete like mallets. My meatless frame hardening like cement; I quickly became another statue that couldn’t chase the pigeons.

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SHORT STORY

***

Granny’s flat smelled of sour milk and cigarettes. Soap opera’s blared from the TV’s down the hallway and paint peeled like chapped lips from the walls. The carpets were yellow and sticky “like old earwax”, my mother and I would tease, as we hiked the stairs, fanning our armpits and fixing our hair.

To escape the earwax floor and the booze on Granny’s breath, I would wiggle up the only window in her flat. “Watch out for the pigeon crap,” Granny would rasp from her swamp of halfmended charity shop clothes and the Voyager on her lip.

While my mother tended to the dishes and the blood stains on Granny’s bandaged wrists, I would squint down onto the spectacular theatre of the street… *** I could see the vendors’ apples stacked like perfect green pyramids. I could hear the whistles from the taxis bounce through the buildings like a giant game of ping-pong. I could taste the boiled mielies simmering on the street corners. I could smell the hair relaxer oozing from the salons. It was here, on the fifth floor, dangling my feet somewhere between the streets and the clouds, that I began to daydream about the city.

The wicked place where I was told to walk with my head down. The stifling, liberating playground in which my body became apparent. The concrete paradise that both antagonized and seduced my girlhood. Another enchanted faraway land in which I wondered if a woman could ever fully exist.

--END- *Point Road has since been renamed to Mahatma Ghandi Road but most still know it as Point Road.

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PO ET RY

Collage

by Niamh Walsh-Vorster 46

POETRY

Constitutional Rights

I walk these streets undaunted, free, a loner or gangbanger whomever I choose to be.

Assured of my daily bread a powerful, dominant man certain that today, today, ALL will be mine!

“Whatever I wish – it is mine, Whatever I say – it is done, Whatever I want – yes, I’ll take it!”

She lies motionless in the dust, Gone!

I feel no sorrow, I saw the prey, stalked it and WON! Constitutional right denied.

Alone in the dock, the judge demands my penance, whilst her family and friends tormented and wretched, demand a harsh sentence.

That’s their Constitutional right.

“Me – I am a victim of circumstance, unemployed by the State’s fat cats who look down on me and my kind.

Fuck!

I don’t ‘smaak’ them or their schemes.

Look at me, I have Constitutional rights, my needs, my rewards, my rights!”

My diminished capacity will ensure that although my home is now these four walls; I – I get to greet the new dawn.

That is my Constitutional right.

Victims cry out, begging for mercy, “But I – I have needs your blood, your pleas, don’t satisfy these, I - I have Constitutional rights.”

-Tessa Horn-Botha

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POETRY

Foundations my father was a ten year old caddy a coolie boy with a dream there was the smell of freshly baked croissants you know, the kind that sinks deep into the pit of an aching stomach and all he wanted was a taste him and the other kids, the coolie kids they stood on the other side of a wall watching as the white men paid for a coolie boy to carry their load And the kids, these coolie kids, you know how it goes, they would churn froth with the desire ‘please sir, I was here first’ my father, he always laughs at this story he was squint, you know, it’s funny that white man screamed at him ‘you coolie boy where did the ball go?’ and the benches read net blankes and my father was afraid but my father wanted more and so my father bought a Porsche, it’s painted with the kind of red you find on the other side of a picket fence and the benches still read net blankes but my father is not afraid yet my father still wants more because when my father bought that Porsche, the one with the red, I told you what kind he called it an investment not an investment in wealth or status but legacy.

- Ariana Munsamy

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Illustration by Alizwa Mnyatheli

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POETRY

Fathers who The candle burns, brushes away darkness, everything is connected to light. A family sits around the table and their presence seals the holes of a shack into a moonbeam. Light settles on their plates and they enjoy a meal.

I know a girl who will never understand what that means She is what the flames left behind.

Fire comes to die in her cold tongue In her heart, everything is swallowed by darkness.

Her father’s absence is smoke and her mother is rubbing ash on her chest – fixing a broken heart.

Her father was water but the wind drank him up.

His absence is ice

Illustration by Alizwa Mnyatheli

She points to her body for men to feel the cold, She wants their heat to stay inside her But all the men she has touched are corpses, always leaving a trail of snow On her pillow.

The search for warmth doesn’t stop when your father is made of water, His life becomes a pause in your lungs We are daughters who never stop searching Who always have their eyes up in the skyline, drawing all the possible faces of a father we’ve never met.

We are grounded chimneys and flying smoke, We are what the flames left behind.

Fire comes to die on our cold tongues, The smoke comes out frozen saying, 50

POETRY

are water I had a father who was water but the wind drank him My father is the air but I cannot get to him His absence is steam In a culture where man do not stay with their families to honour it, Man wonder off and evaporate We become children who are chasing the flood Writing love letters to the ocean for we don’t know where our fathers live Only that when they left the candle stopped burning Sometimes, I want ask mom what dad looked like, But I can imagine her curving him in stillness His eyes outlined by the dark, He has no face, his whole body is water And next time I see him He will be on my mother’s face Walking out on her again.

I never cry along, tears remind me of men who are gone.

Whose absence is ice and have names built out of steam.

Whenever it rains my father returns, Still without a face but a body of liquid.

He waters our garden and soaks into the ground, He is never coming back.

I don’t know if he is out there, I don’t know if he is alive.

But I am.

- Busisiwe Mahlangu 51

Learning to Walk I move to stride And find that I stumble Blindly through a silken night.

I move to stride And find, in barbed wire display cases, Galaxies of would-be dreams Museums of passions Briefly ignited In oil spills of frenzied obsession - The kind that make you run as if

Your lungs brewed cyanide

Stars scoring third degree scars Along the please-cut-here Ridges of my psyche, Their heat, like branding irons Sunk into the ice water vacuum of space Sizzling against my skin,

Small reminders of existence

Sentencing psychosis

To a momentary silence.

Dreams now dormant, decaying, Dissolved In the merciless metabolism Of growing up.

I move to stride And find that the floor Has unfolded beneath me And I tumble through Trapdoors of treacle, Melting into molasses webs Of my own moulding, Choking on stale, too-sweet air, Surrendering to stagnant suffocation, Shackled To my sofa.

And though for now I cannot see Beyond the thick walls of molasses, Nor hear above the nails that claw Their screams across my chalkboard skin My lungs still crave Those swells of cyanide And I lust to surf Through those spills of oil Once more So still, I move to stride.

I move to stride And find myself hidden In hallways drenched in Dettol Gnawing At my left ventricle, Too impatient to wait out Its imminent collapse.

-

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Yasthiel Devraj

POETRY

Illu

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POETRY

Demigod You made me feel like a god.

Attentive to my commands weary of seeing my favour removed every text was worship; every call a prayer.

The visits were a pilgrimage where your short-fallings were forgiven my presence cleansed you from condemnation you were on your knees seeking ways to pleasure me patiently.

Every sorry a sacrificial offering of burned incense burning till its aroma reached the height of my glory I was unquestionably beautiful without you saying a word it was your eyes, your stutter, and the sigh over the phone, my name out of your mouth.

You made me feel like I moved your mountains turning your indented nipples into summits I made your every request come to pass.

Healing your traumas with a brush of our hips my lips were your living waters; slowly and carefully hydrating your spirit.

I was a good god whose word never shook at the sight of your transgressions.

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POETRY

I bought you at a price that has since cost me sleepless nights.

I do not sleep. I never slumber. I watch over your Snapchat and Instagram stories.

I am always there. There to gently guard you, not to condemn you.

But you renounced my existence so I had to leave.

Yet every gift I gifted you will always be yours.

My face will radiate through you.

My love will never leave nor forsake you.

If you decide to confess your love for me again know that my gates are eternally opened wide for you return.

I will eagerly await it as though you are my only one.

It’s what we gods do.

- Nkosazana Hlalethwa

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POETRY

Murder, murder.

Black consciousness awoken.

Murder, murder.

Segregation determined separations.

Murder, murder.

Black contrast Black and white

Thought

Filter Murder, murder Street coffins, Our tears constantly water the soil that keeps our loved ones Murder, murder.

The third person’s hurting Someone lost their life a minute ago.

Black panther Murder, murder I have a dream, But somehow it’s presented in coffins.

Murder, murder.

Black and white Filter Violent protest Propaganda I watch the lens of a camera but edited to feed the consumption of the news Journalism Capitalism We are spectators in the theatre of the oppressed Murder, murder.

White flag shown Close curtains. - Thina Dube

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Photograph by Lucinda Jolly

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POETRY

Let It Take You Do you hear the sound that lingers in the spaces between your breathes?

The pauses between your words And the split second silences between your heartbeat Like licking flames dancing in your eyes Softly bellowing behind your sleepy conscience You can meet it at the door of your despair Let it take you

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Muneerah Khan

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Photograph by Lucinda Jolly

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Awake

Five twenty five Eliot’s hour.

But, this morning what is past is prelude.

His song unravels me – a dispossession of the here and now.

Clammy sheets peel back to reveal the lilting notes of a drunk that ears fail to locate.

His tune sung for no one, claims my city.

All that is left to do is follow precedent – I wipe my mouth and laugh.

- Kirby Manià

It confirms that this now five thirty winter’s lack of light belongs not to me but to a voice piercing the cold of today’s preday.

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POETRY

Photograph by Lucinda Jolly

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POETRY

A woman’s mental preparation before walking out the door: 1. Only leave when the morning light enters the window frame,

and return before it gets dark.

2. What are you going to wear today?

In these tight pants you know he’ll strip you naked with his eyes as he

drives past you.

3. That group of guys, who sit at the corner, will be there again today.

One of them will whistle.

4. He’ll run up to you, grab your arm, demand you pay attention.

If you retaliate, he’ll cuss you out and tell you you’re not even that pretty.

5. If you wear this short dress: Sit at the back or that taxi driver will

‘accidently’ stroke your thighs again.

6. That woman will ask where you lost your self-respect

“Your body is a temple and is only meant for your husband to see,”

she’ll say.

7. Another will remind you that you aren’t “marriage material.”

And yes, she’ll tell you: “This is why you’ll get raped.”

8. This always happens, today won’t be any different.

(Are you sure you want to wear this outfit?)

9. Okay. Listen, this body belongs to you – wear whatever you want.

Are you ready? Got your earphones?

10. Okay, breathe. Just breathe.

Put on your ‘resting bitch face’ and walk by like you don’t hear them.

– Charlene Mihi

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Photograph by Lucinda Jolly

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POETRY

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my train is running on schedule Too early late, too soon behindhand.

Timing is everything and nothing.

Waiting, I can hear the moving cough of the bus into distant ears.

Missing it is a sore, painful feeling, stabs when you attempt to chase.

Waiting for another one here, sitting, tapping my feet away, and throwing rocks at rocks on rocks feeling rocky while I wait.

When hearts in the eyes become rain, showers slashing down our faces in river line ways, We will realise we had waited for the bus by the train-tracks, it was never going to come.

The railways are perfect symbols of how we will always be parallel, side-by-side always, never to meet, never to be one.

-NuBlaccSoul

Photograph by Lucinda Jolly 65

Cup and saucer I. sleepscape without panties on it was damp and yes I was under the ironing board cordless umbilical tower horse headed off-white

it was you in there

palm of stubby cat

II. wakescape This poem got me up at ten I lay on my side out of water closed my eyes to speak when I was dry.

Remembered how you held out a glass jug. I put my saucer down raised the cup to my lips a cold linen tea then left

- Francine Simon

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Nan

Talking to a guy half her age she stood cross-legged at the bar something worn in her hands I’d know those arms anywhere two stone white and lickable the other jack-orange jutting from her belly it shifted turning little to me finger clumps kept between sentences does she know I’m watching?

Nenchi

#20

Your tongue tested the air in us I was so thick and yellow I thought she’d choke on me, right?

My buds swelled twisting into her weak harvest mouth I knew in saying no you could be taking me as a brother what’s more, you had no lips only sharp rows lining your cheeks like a stomach Do I like that about you?

Kera

I held on with smooth flesh hands mouth pushing my tooth blades as you moved up up my shoulder to its swollen tape have you ever eaten skin?

My hands closing against each head

Ni yara

I pictured him as one black sock one brown his bodies were five flat fields slipping out of sole spaced sheets I touched the suck tip Mmm purple bruises of him whose teeth marks were those? his lips were neither at the back of his head nor the front Are they mine? I nodded and couldn’t come - Francine Simon 67

EDITION 14 CONTRIBUTORS

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Wairimũ Mũrĩithi Youlendree Appasamy Dave Mann Phumlani Mkhize Alyssa Naicker Robyn Perros Nosipho Nxele Kate Janse van Rensburg Trevor Molepot Joe Turpin Jessica Hansen Diona Stevic Marinko The Green Camp Gallery Project Nathi Dass Tessa Horn-Botha Alizwa Mnyatheli Busisiwe Mahlangu Yashtiel Devraj Nkosazana Hlalethwa Thina Dube Muneerah Khan Kirby Mania Charlene Mihi Isabel Ralwins Carol Kagezi Osmosisliza Ariana Munsamy

Francine Simon Lucinda Jolly NuBlaccSoul Niamh Walsh-Vorster

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