There is no one to stop it
Sometimes it feels a curse to wander the streets in possession of my senses;
the force of the southeaster wind,
then to look up at the oppressive rock in the shape of a table.
the flat white nation in their industrial coffee shop furniture, the beards, the lost backpackers.
The red bus, the blue brigade.
The whistles - "hello gurlie, molo nice.”
The silent resentments, the “I'm not scared of you but threatened” looks.
The incessant intolerance masked in politeness, dipped in post-racial jokes about the colour of tea: it's so Beyoncé.
The sharp, jarring tongue of an angry woman in a trench coat, smack in the middle of a nauseatingly sticky summer - a rare scene on that beach: the rich beach. Words from her gut spat out, landing on nearly numb oily sun baking bodies.
My freedom in this country!
Insane. Fully mental. Truthful.
Freedom is paying my god damn bills, on time.
It's my symbolic death. A ritualised burial of me that I present daily.
The woman of strength. The man of resolve. The cultured. The vultured. The race bound-unbound. The achieved, the insider-outsider, existing yet ignored. The successful bullshitter. The broken, the unfortunate, the conscious, the hustler, the beggar, the jester.
My lies free you. I bury one each day only to resurrect another.
It's hearing the song they'll play when they pour dirt on my final resting place.
“Lefu laka, le lala mang le mang, haona oka lethibelang!”
(My death, and anyone else's, there is no one to stop it!)
Or the song that makes me feel at ease, breathing in the enormous task of living.
Shaking my trap to freedom.
So I fight it or let go of it or fight to let go of it, for myself and others. Never surrender, just a pause.
Realising everything needs MIGHT to overcome - love, war, peace, this life thing.
I'm wrestling with the gods. My gods, their gods.
This deadly awakening. I’m ill-equipped. We all are.
Flash floods, poo wars, smashed windows, organic food, garbage foraging, house break-ins, no one to blame, designer sandwiches, township-themed parties, dog parks, Sunday traditional dancers in Camps Bay, taxi turf wars, "can I have a R2?", "I'm not a drug addict I need money for the shelter tonight," car guards, Banting diets, tiny dogs, maids’ uniforms, bottoms, body builders. Invisible and seen at the same time.
Wind me down. Wind on my skin, the cold Atlantic Ocean on my body and the infinite horizon view from the top of Lion's Head.
The space to say: this is my city. I belong. (Not entirely).
Freedom can be an antithesis to clarity. Punch drunk at a party at the end of the last drink when the room starts spinning, the feeling of being no one, with nothing left, vacuous, gone forever in memory loss.
They say freedom is love. Free those I love so they may be happy (to never return).
Oh, the freedom of love in its constraints.
How good it is, this love, when it chokes me with the promises of my to-be-continued happiness. Then for the panic to strike. This feeling, this person is transient and the only moment that will matter has passed. I should have said something. Life is short, but life is oh forever long.
Especially in moments of small magic; the knowing laugh of a lover, the crinkles of their smile; my pounding heart, yet to be broken.
Freedom is the comforting one-liner from that self-help book, eating grass to prove faith and washing it down with petrol. Green inferno, the anarchist's way.
It's a state of mind, this freedom. It's the state of your pocket, the state of your self-importance. It's bigger than your hip-hop.
Free from the imprisonment of what it feels to be a character (to play a role) in history in a HER's body.
Freedom is a big word to say but I have a bigger cage in a bigger zoo where I may be the little king of my jungle.
It's the false comfort of calm silences in between all the violent complacency.
But honey, I'm free and I'm home.
pixelskylines
tangentwithtanner
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
titsay
yousharknotpass
prguitarman
turnnoffyourmind