What’s in a room?
Well, this one’s big and blue, filled with cushioned chairs placed in long, neat rows
Stairs leading up to a stage flooded with light, bright and orange
It’s a room*
But on closer inspection, I notice white marks pitted into the blue carpet where the black legs of chairs once stood
Those scars stark reminders of the parallels in our history
Only the black legs of the removed belonged not to chairs but people, with skins too dark to remain within the parts of the country undergoing a violent lightening process
And so, like the chairs, they were moved somewhere out of view and only the scars remained
And they make me think of the way that history erases some and highlights others
And I think of the erasure of people like me
A whole generation that could have been, but were deemed illegal through the immorality act
A people neither fully black, nor fully white*, but pieces of each that find themselves fighting it out, awkwardly figuring out how to reside side by side within their hosts
Within me
I am an amalgamation of contradictions that have only recently truly learned to make peace with one another, and acknowledge each other’s value
Because diversity always increases complexity, and maybe it’s the multiplicity of layers of sometimes opposing identities
That makes it difficult for me to see the world in black and white
Instead I find myself teetering in between, taking my cues from the shades of grey, stutteringly finding a way to walk the line of uncertainty
Often wishing for the simplicity enjoyed by those who find themselves firmly planted on one side of an issue
Unquestionably certain that their eyes see things right, and that those on the other side see things wrong
But my eyes do not work that way, my vision is more blurred, but well trained to see what’s underneath the surface
A gift that at times feels like a curse, forcing me to abide in this uncomfortable in between
A nomad, my only home nestled within my rib cage
For I am at once both oppressor and oppressed, coloniser and colonised
Somehow disenfranchised within my own being
Birthed on African soil, but whisked away soon after to the land of Queen Elizabeth
Only to return in 1995, once the legal aspects of apartheid had died
Yet the spirit managed to survive
And so did I, by denying the aspects of myself that were aligned with what society deemed as black, while embracing the sides they thought of as white
And so, as he had done externally in the years prior, the coloniser in me was victorious once more
Inciting the worst kind of violence- that which is done against oneself
And the journey of picking up the broken shards, and piecing them back together, has been hard, but important
Because wholeness is my inheritance
And my wholeness is the world’s inheritance
For they will not benefit from a me at odds with myself
And I intend for my life to be a gift- one inevitably layered with complexity, mystery, uncertainty, but also the light, wonder, and hope, that anyone finding themselves along that confusing spectrum of grey, can hold onto
And find themselves
Home
* This poem was written in and found inspiration from a big blue hall, hence the beginning…
*I recognise that ‘blackness’ and ‘whiteness’ are constructs
*This poem is really meant to be spoken rather than written, but…
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