I hardly left my room that whole year.
It was me
And the knife;
A kettle,
Bible
Agoraphobic and contrite
In a campus tower
In Parktown
Like some failed organ, rotting
At the centre of
A breathing,
Beating thing
It was university
It was Johannesburg
It was eating a baby animal with your hands and
Feet,
And nose,
For the very first time
And feeling the fat
Slip your skin
Everyone
Eating
Quickly
Because the veal had been purchased
The Black tax paid off in advance
So every second
Wasted
Left things to moulder.
It stunk—
It roiled
Tasted like hot,
Oily guilt
Fresh off the stovetop
Not many people get this opportunity.
In that way, city,
You swallowed me
I was finally a human being
In you.
Were we not all
Scrabbling
To feel like we’d crawled
Through Hell
And made it?
Was it not always half-past-twelve?
It’s what made us the new adults
That hard,
Fast
Reality,
Thumping.
That self-flagellation
That loneliness in company
The pretense
Of control
The bus would swing through,
Nearly clip our toes off
And we’d load in;
The hours were early,
Our exhales pale
And cold
It would tunnel us through
The belly of Braam
Famished high-rises
Messy streets
Hurried footfall
Tired hands
All this life caught within
A gyre
Of moments
Maybe lecture halls felt
Like pointless destinations
After seeing the world
Like that
Every
Morning
All the coffee went tepid
We couldn’t be honest to one another
And half of us were culled
By June
At night
The men’s res would gather
Under our windows
And sing Gwijo
I once walked
Eight minutes in
The rain
At 4 AM
To attend a first aid course
And failed it
There was a new life to be tried:
Sex
Groove
Cigarettes
Denial
Rebellion and
Lab reports
There was a new life to be lived
But
I could not live it
I licked that Joburg jazz
Up off street corners
I survived on dregs
Until my time ran out
I wanted it
Bad
I wanted to be The Guy
Cutting something open
I wanted to dance
I wanted to be loved with
All the sureness
Of a bullet
And all the outpour
Of the exit wound
I wanted to deserve it
Okay.
Quit.
Mad.
Stop.
Olwanda Saphokazi Majozi is a South African poet and student whose work focuses on identity, womanhood, and the search for a sense of belonging. Her poetry has been published in the South African publication Ons Klyntji Zine.