I inherited no soil I inherited no name I inherited a culture Divorced from me I inherited a culture That still lives with me I inherited a bottle Of dilute life I inherited a bottle Of heritage dissolved I inherited some rules I do not understand I inherited some rules …

Don’t hate me For loving the colour that drips from my skin Don’t hate me For not wanting to be the only patch Of exposed earth In your bed of unmoved snow Don’t hate me For not wanting your Idea of a ‘Rainbow Nation’ Don’t hate me For the chemicals I won’t put in my hair For letting it dry in the air. Don’t hate me For wanting to look like my mother Not yours Don’t hate me For finding the strength

I wish you would talk to me. I wish I could talk to you. I wish that I was safe enough, comfortable enough, for you to talk to. I wish you would let me hold you. I wish you would hold me back. I wish you would let my wrap…

You are starlight You are every twinkle seen in the sky You hold a galaxy of secrets that are yet to be discovered You hold every answer in the universe You are a million, billion, trillion little lamps clustered and scattered across every inch of existence . You are everything. You are you.

You stop at the stairs. Maybe you were running. You are unsure. There is a numbness that surrounds you, as if your mind has settled just below the surface of the sea. You find yourself trapped in muffled sounds and shifting realities. You may not realise, but your feet carry…

– there’s a shadow lurking, somewhere nearby There was an odd sense of humour, At some point, maybe halfway, There was an odd sense of humour. It happens when you’ve long since stopped tallying the times you’ve heard this. It gets funny. It becomes a little bit hilarious, to hear the truth, over and over again. Until…

There’s something that’s gone now And maybe it left in a heartbeat Or maybe I watched you fly, Toward an open world Where gravity pulled you ‘round the edge Until I couldn’t find you in the twinkling universe anymore Maybe we were just finite Maybe the scalding, pressured water pushed through our crushed, ground beans. Maybe the cup has been filled and all that’s left is murky lukewarm water. And maybe that’s what’s scary. Or maybe what’s

You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to strip me bare Lay me out on a table Or put me in a glass jar. You don’t get to hold me Grasp me Feel my heartbeat You don’t get to want me Graze your eyes across my skin distantly Bite your lip ‘Cause you can’t bite mine You don’t get to contradict me Pretend that I want it I don’t No You don’t get that You are not allowed To make decisions about My body My being

One day One day I’ll write you a poem I’ll write about your simper The consuming curves of your mouth The twitches Sudden, sharp In your muscles Sensations I’ll tell the world Empty rooms that (mock) read / my fractured whispers Of how your chipped translators, snuck past the raw…