finding self

What defines Self?
Girl, white, freckles, short,
this country, that thought?
The phase of the moon when we met?
The greatest fear
the smallest hope,
How many times a mosquito bit?

What is written on Twitter,
that must be it.

It has to be said

You who choose to end your lives yourselves:

When you leave
you leave behind broken people,
you take with you a piece of us.
We will stumble for the rest of our lives
trying to find that fragment
and always slightly long for death
to be there reunited.

It has to be said.

American sentence

Fate will always demand something in return for Tall, Dark and Handsome.

Not named

A strange sweet sadness haunts me these Saturdays.

Time alone in my head.

American sentence

I have lost something, and when I know what it is then I will not be.

Random memory

Me, alone in a tiny granny flat in Potchefstroom. Listening to the rain pounding the parched earth like the sky was crying for her torn-apart soul.

The smell is always like a new beginning.

Youare but youaren't
stayaway gohome
don't count don't care
who are youanyway?
where did itall begin?
how does it end?
Inbetween feeling solost
so fuckingtired.

American sentence

Am I even real, this shambles of a facade wearing thin with use?

awhirl

Here is another contribution from guest splatter sass:


awhirl

i'm staring at the ceiling again

mind reeling

thoughts rushing ceaselessly

fish-tailing

flipping

flitting

fleeing half-formed

and fleeting

my mind reaches to grasp

though there's but air

mere wisps of smoke

swirling

disappearing into whorls of nothing

just an observation

Here is a contribution from another guest splatter, this time it is sass from my whorl. She is quite a prolific poet and often publishes her writing on her blog. Go check it out!


life goes on...

the trash truck does it's rounds,

tow trucks wait

on the edge of the highway -

lions at a watering hole.

motorists carve curious trails,

carom precariously,

swim drunken laps through a sea of

careless cars.

today's headlines line the lampposts

like so many doomsday prophets.

there's so much truth,

so many lies.

i retreat behind the bars

of my eyes...

and life goes on...

The violence of the colonised soul

Much has been written about the psychological and spiritual violence suffered by the colonised native. I agree wholeheartedly with this but I would like to add all citizens of colonised countries to this list, not only the natives of a country.

This is not to detract from the suffering of the indigenous peoples. That they have had foreign cultures thrust upon them and have suffered as a result is unquestionable. They had no choice but to adopt the new culture and weld and meld it with their own as best they could. They became hybrids in order to survive.

My ancestors came to South Africa at various times. They were white, they chose to come to a new country, but to ignore as much as possible the local ways and culture. They chose to follow only their own ways, and to force those ways upon the locals.

There is nothing I can do about this. I am sorry it happened. But us descendants of the colonisers we are hybrids too. We find ourselves citizens of a country that does not much want us any more. We are told we are Europeans. We go to Europe and they tell us there is no way we are European. We were born on African soil and taught to love that soil with all our hearts, but we are not allowed to be called African.

I believe that all citizens of a colonised country suffer from hybridity, psychological violence, dividedness, a confused sense of self, a crisis of identity.

Will an Indian South African ever be "South African", even if they are 6th generation South African? Or will they always be "Indian South African"? Will a coloured person, the most glaring example of hybridity, ever be allowed to forge an identity that is neither white nor black, but South African? Does a "South African" identity exist at all? Black people have had western ways and ideals thrust upon them, and must choose to adopt them and be called a "coconut", or reject them and battle to fit into a Westernised job market, or weld them into a new hybrid form.

We are all hybrids, and we can fight this or we can embrace it. It makes us who we are, it challenges us. We will always suffer this confusion, this sensation of not quite belonging to anything, but it need not damage us. We should allow it to drive us forward, and while it may never unite us into a common South African identity, we can remember that we all suffer from this fate of existential confusion, whatever our roots.