Portrait of a Girl at the Border Wall

All the women in my life are hungry I have written this one hundred times I do not know how else to tell it how to write the girl by the roadside the bruised peach the narrow collar the night full of birds Her body is a long river that cuts through every room see…

A Kind Of Architectural Grief

In the place of slaughter blood stains are not an anomaly. Normally,     the stain of love begins with a government’s betrayal,    a sacrilegious feast on the battered dreams of migrant workers    chimurenga wars and forgotten anthems of freedom.             a salary and a salt plea for…

Black Photosynthesis

Deforestation isn’t just the cutting down of trees. It’s the cutting down of black women’s self esteem. It’s when you turn us into pretty furniture to sit on. Make textbooks out of our bodies And then use our broken spines to bind them  It’s when you pull us out of the earth We were so…

For the blues

It’s 4am and you’re awake like your body’s been paged. You’re wondering if it will be worth it to sleep for 30 more minutes before starting your day. They’re playing a senseless song on the radio and it feels like such a waste of airplay. So you tuck yourself in to rest your brain. You’re…

Hungry

I am hungry for a love my country cannot afford. I want a love that will buffer my mistakes even before I commit them A love that has mapped out the possibilities of my existence and made room for each one of them A love that doesn’t need me to clamour to identify as black…

Ruddy Morfaw

Ruddy Morfaw is a Cameroonian jurist, writer and spoken-word poet. For over a decade, she has worked with institutions in the area of human rights, peace, development and corporate litigation. She has been a researcher and human rights activist with the Cameroon National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms (NCHRF), Southwest Region, and she currently…

Sarah Lubala

Sarah Lubala is a Congolese-born, South Africa-based writer. Her family fled the Democratic Republic of Congo two decades ago amidst political unrest. They relocated first to South Africa, then the Ivory Coast, before returning to South Africa and settling in Johannesburg. She has been twice shortlisted for the Gerald Kraak Award, and once for The…

Chioniso Tsikisayi

Chioniso Tsikisayi is a spoken word poet, writer, singer, and filmmaker from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. She is passionate about creative arts and conscious storytelling. Her work has been published in Brittle Paper, Isele Magazine and Litro Magazine. Her first body of music titled Heaven Is Closer Than You Know was released in November 2020 in collaboration with award-winning…

Alith Cyer Mayar

Alith Cyer Mayar is a writer, poem and activist. She was born in 1997 in Khartoum, Sudan, and grew up in different places as Uganda and South Sudan. She attendend the Sudan Academy for Medical and Technological Studies training as a nurse. During that time, she volunteered for different hospitals and clinics. In the meanwhile…

Abigail George

Abigail George is a South-African feminist, poet and writer based in Port Elizabeth. Born in 1979, she is a prolific writer: she has written a novella, several books of poetry and collections of short stories. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the recipient of two South African National Arts Council Writing Grants and of one from the Centre for…