Ijeoma Umebinyuo
Koleka Putuma
Vangile Gantsho
Lebo Mashile
Busisiwe Mahlangu
Siphokazi Jonas
Danai Mupotsa
Lebohang Masango
Thando Fuze
Khanyi Shusha
Mthunzikazi Mbongwana
Vuyelwa Maluleke
Tshebeletso Mohale
Nkateko Masinga
Emma Mbye
Upile Chisala
Warsan Shire
Ashley Makue

Healing comes in waves
and maybe today
the wave hits the rocks
and that’s ok,
that’s ok, darling
you are still healing
you are still healing.

- Ijeoma Umebinyuo

Memoirs of a slave and queer person:

I don't want to die
With my hands up
Or legs open

- Koleka Putuma

I am standing in the middle of the road trying to drown out my mother's voice. She tells me I will go to hell for all the men who come in and out of my bed. She doesn't know about the women. I wonder if there is a worse kind of hell for people like me.

- Vangile Gantsho

What happens to black boys who go missing?
Do we even call it missing?
Do we just say, he is gone?

- Lebo Mashile

Look at yourself
you have not died yet
you are an unending revolution
you are surviving loss

- Busisiwe Mahlangu

Umakhulu noTamkhulu ngabantu bomhlaba.

And my inheritance is in the land under my fingernails.
So when it rains, I crave the soil… three times a day.

Some call it anaemia.
But
I know it to be communion.

- Siphokazi Jonas

These uncles
Ask us to be rational
While they rape us

- Danai Mupotsa

I realized
I prefer my men brown bodied, borrowed & tired

I want to love you like I love hip hop, the way I hold jazz in my belly & balance blues on the tip of my tongue

Like prayer, your body becomes religion
And I not having all of you is tantamount to sin

- Lebohang Masango

This love thing
just shows up
and seeks to find us
and always finds us needing it
We can never have enough of it
We keep letting it in
Sometimes without even sieving it
Some of it
Waltzes in with thorns and leaves us bleeding
but we can do this forever

- Thando Fuze

Do not dream you are too black, we are born from travelers

- Khanyi Shusha

Ababuyanga abantwana
Namhl' ilanga litshon' emini
Inja nganye izikhoth' amanxeba
Ababuyanga abantwana
Akhomnt' unokuza yindaba yakwa mkhozi
Abatshakazi bawuphekile bawuphothula bawuphaka umqa
Kungoku nje kugcwele iintanda

Ababuyanga abantwana emadodeni
Ababuyanga abantwana entabeni
Nantsiya imandlalwana yabo ilalelwa livukazi ngase buhlanti
Abafazi bayagixa emveni kocango
Amadoda ayangqukuleka enkundleni
Ababuyanga abantwana
Awabuyanga amadoda entabeni.

- Mthunzikazi Mbongwana

You have called your pain something less suspicious.
You have called it 'tired'

- Vuyelwa Maluleke

When all your traumas are pulling you to your grave and you're in a room full of people who've learned to laugh through their scares.

Instead, in between all the small talk, all you want to do is blurt out HELP ME, HOLD ME.

- Tshebeletso Mohale

i imagine dying here
and instead of someone saying
look, a black angel
they will say
if she flies,
she must be a witch

i pray often
mostly to stay alive
but today i want to ask
if there are black angels in heaven

- Nkateko Masinga

It is hard not to pass on trauma
It is hard not to accept trauma
We all want to save each other

- Upile Chisala

I am writing to you
from the future
to tell you that
everything will be okay.

- Warsan Shire

we learn early
that calling a man
your father might make him come
but it will not cause him to stay

— Ashley Makue