***
There is a universe where you exist better
You have loving parents
You are not neglected
Your mother does not call you a demon
Your father does not leave
You are not in pain
You have awakened my heart
You have got me loving
You have got me hoping
I hope we never break up
You have got me envisioning
Suddenly there are pictures in my brain
There are pictures sent from my heart and borrowed from your eyes and you’re the-world-is-alright laugh
Suddenly there is a home for me,
Something that I lost a long time ago and learned to do without, learned to pretend it doesn’t hurt
I hope we never break up
There are fat clumsy babies touching my face with part recognition, part excitement and part confusion
There are soft fat knees crawling and falling, tumbling
Mamma?
The fatties are sticky and warm and smelly, and they pee, but I don’t mind
Because it’s…good, and I am Mamma
So, I hope that we never break up
Because I love the peeing fatties and I love you very much
And you ask me why I kiss the peeing fatties so much
You ask me if it isn’t too much
You say that I shouldn’t put my tongue in their mouths and let them put their in mine
Is it wrong? Is that crossing a line? Is it not affection? I kiss you to show you my love.
I don’t quite know the right way of showing affection. I am a Zulu and an Awkward.
I don’t know the lines, and when I was nine my brother died and my mother told me that he had been her favourite and I swallowed both my grief and my rejection very quickly and very hard and looked straight ahead, blinking only to not cry.
Please could we not break up?
I don’t know much about showing affection
I don’t know about expressing emotion
I am learning most of it from the way that you say Shezi-baby
I am crawling and falling and fumbling, like our clumsy peeing fatties
I am learning, I am resting my head against the closest that I can get to your heart
I am tracing joy with my fingers
I am praying
I am praying that you are still here when I get back
Back from finding the things that I cannot name
Things which I do not know but which never stop keeping me up at night
Dreams of rivers I feel I need to cross and huts that I have to crawl into, to put things together, to find my people, to find my story
Please, could we not break up
You have awakened my heart and changed my mind
And I have started to wonder
I have started to rethink
I have started to question
I have started to shed
Baby, please, could we not break up
You can sometimes be unkind
You sometimes speak with aggression
Even when I ask you to speak with tenderness
You cut me off when I am making a point
You invalidate my complaints by calling me difficult
You dismiss my contribution by hanging up on me
You shut me out
I think that we might break up
I am trying to shed, shed myself away,
Taking off the undesirable parts
And I shed and I shed until all that is left is newness and blind optimism and childish faith
Pleading faith
I am trying to be better for us
But in becoming better I am becoming less
I am shedding myself away
The fatties have grown thin
The babies no longer pee
I am still shedding, so that I can be better, so that I can be palatable, so that I can be lovable, so that I can smell the fatties again
So that I can once again trace joy with my fingers
I am holding on
I hope that we never break up
But you shout and I want to retreat
I want to go back to my place of oneness
I want to go where it is safe
Because the safe space that you promised has shattered and we have the fatties
I am scared
I shout back
I shout louder
I hope we never break up
You talk more and more about yourself
You listen to me less and less
You dismiss me as often as you can
Your how are you and what are you up to and how was your day are perfunctory
I ignore this and swallow myself just a little bit more
I pretend that my spirit isn’t big, bigger
I pretend that I am not great, that I am not move-mountains-on-my-own great
I have started to leave myself behind
I have started calling myself heavy, and I am shedding
I have started calling myself untrusting, and I am shedding
I have started calling myself fearful, and I am shedding
I have started thinking myself unwilling, and I am shedding
I have started to say that it is my fault, and I am shedding
I have started to say sorrys that I do not understand, and I am shedding
I am shedding and leaving myself behind
I am shedding and losing myself
But it is not enough
There is not enough of me of myself that I could shed off that I could shed away leave behind, for us to make it
And if I could still get through to you I would ask you if you are shedding and swallowing and diminishing too
If I could still get through to you I would ask if you too are saying sorrys that you do not understand, hoping that each sorry gives us a one more step and one more, until we can get over and get through
If I could get through to you I would ask if we are not simply bad timing, if we didn’t find each other at an inconvenient time, a time of frustrations and changes and growing pains
But you shout and I shout louder and we hang up
I think that we should break up
Why do we need this?
Why do we need this thing that we need to be smaller for?
Why do we need this thing that has us shouting?
Why do we need this thing which has you calling me negative energy?
What is it all for?
What are we ruining each other for?
Weren’t we perfect when we were ruined alone, separately, without each other to highlight the ruin, not pick at it, to pick it apart?
Weren’t we perfect when we were not infecting each other with our horrible?
I have shed and left behind and begged and diminished and died but it has not been enough
So we shout one last time and you leave
I had hoped that we wouldn’t break up.
Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash