#mbembhele

[mbembhele]

I have recently discovered something phenomenal about myself. I do not like being loved, the burden of having to reciprocate the love is just too much to bear. It is much like walking backwards on a hot windy day.

[mbembhele]

kindness

being kind to yourself means acknowledging that you will have to forgive yourself even when others refuse to. it means accepting that you will have to love yourself even when others think that you do not deserve it. but also, kindness requires you to spend time with yourself and reflect on both the ways you negotiate the world and how it affects other people. kindness is a bitter honesty to yourself about who you are, how people perceive you and who you want to be. most importantly though kindness is a verb, it is not a once off thing that you arrive at but it is something that you constantly do and cultivate. a lifestyle.

[mbembhele]

short poem for tony gum

she could easily be frida kahlo.

or,  nina simone three seconds before stage

misunderstood.

could also be that woman under the scorching sun

selling mangoes on the streets.

surviving, living, breathing and gasping in between.

she could be an entire history carved in clay and smoking pipe

a memory of a people

or, she could be tony gum

a woman about herself, her infinite selves.

@tonygumstudio

[mbembhele]

my dabbling with theory is nothing but a lousy excuse to run away from the brutal reality of my work of fiction.

Mbe Mbhele

[mbembhele]

When the Spinach Shrinks – Kalahari Review

A four poem series on how pain, disappointment and desire is distributed, expressed across our bodies, space and time by South African Mbe…

a couple of my poems published on the kalahari review. check them out and share them.

[mbembhele]

(un) employability

The taxi and the train moving from the township to the city like coal. When the alarms ring and the engines start, factory chimneys greet the sky with smoke that clouds the clouds to signal the beginning of another yesterday. A yesterday of hours on the till at the supermarket. A yesterday of shouting locations directing slaves to their different plantations  , Berea la, Yoeville la and Sandton. 

Tomorrow the alarm will not ring but factory chimneys will not cease greeting the skies. 

[mbembhele]

I’m working on something really cool & important, if you have any books you are willing to donate please do and i will arrange how we courier them. Preference is South African and African literature but other books are also fine. Thank you in advance.

[mbembhele]

black consciousness is not one dimensional, it’s not only the knowledge of Fanon, Biko, X, and them but it’s simply understanding who you are in relation to the world and figuring out how you can better navigate it.