Category: Essay

Imagine living in a world designed for every being except your kind—a world where all forces oppose you. Religion, men, and even your fellow species define your imposed inferiority. I do not have to imagine since I am a black woman, an AFRICAN BLACK WOMAN. It is humiliating that those three words, mere words, could… Continue reading Living in a Man’s World

When you’re attending a wedding in my hometown, in Nigeria, please arrive late. If you do, you will sit behind the most handsome men in the world. Then you can ogle away without having to turn your head and make it obvious. Your prowl must be stealthy, like a Komodo Dragon hunting, taking from the… Continue reading What We See When We Are Not Looking

Maybe the voice is a father. Maybe the voice is not a legal North American citizen. Maybe the voice likes to go Monday night bowling with greasy buffalo chicken fingers. Maybe you’re misgendering the voice. Maybe the voice has been altered. Maybe the voice is a Virgo.  When the voice on the train starts saying… Continue reading The Brown Line Talks

My birth is a metaphor of bullet-traces and the ironic verse of Leninist style-songs for black liberation thatreverberated the grey-mist clad red-mountains of home – Zimbabwe. My birthing was a stitch between the thud of war-time guns and a heave of pungwe jives. Young women of mymother’s age were volunteer maids during the traumatic but zeal-oiled Chimurenga times, cooking and washing forthe cadres of liberation. Chimurenga songs sung by these war-ironed peasant mothers and bullet-toughenedcollaborators in the red-hills of Wedza. These Mother- guerrillas endured the hard throbs of grenades and the thrash ofmidnight-rains in those village hills alongside bushy male combatants. They learnt the soprano of the gun and the tenorof death. These were heaven-echoing struggle hymns. On the day of my birth, heavy rains rattled the winter-crusted red-earth. Rivers sobbed with heaven’s tears and sorrows of war. That gruelling night, swarms of collaborators were moved from one base toanother, my earthly goddess was among those pilgrims of war. …her heartbeat thrilled my tender ears and her blood-ripples lulled my faint soul to sleep. And so, my foetus spirit rodealong with waves of echo and beat of verse. Ingenuity. I am the blessing of the trip, the child of war song and rain. A mystery. I am a child of song. I was birthed during the exodus. That rebel’s war was characterized by death, wailing, stampede, bravery, shallow-graves, song and continuouswalking. A trailblazing Africa reality show. My earthly goddess was a dedicated collaborator, volunteer and songstress. She carried freedom in the sacred cave ofher womb. After their strange overnight long walk to freedom base of Mbirashava – rains ceased fire, war- drums paused andtheir echoes got trapped into the blankets of early day mist. Then came my birth cry they say like an exclamation engraved on the yellow-disc of the smoke-bruised African sun. Claws of dawn caressed the sorrow-soaked red-hills. My goddess wriggled in a thick volcano of red- clay mud, ochre-red blood and dead grass. Her womb groaned from labour pangs and suddenly the wind was cold. June dared the earthand everything in it. Cold-winds whined ferociously to disobedient flora and delinquent vultures. Winter, fast clicking a pause button to the jungle’s daily festivals. I was born. Cadres and collaborators dribbled a liberation jive for my homecoming. They called me Gandanga. I was initiated into this earth by the alto of howling winter-winds, baritones of barking-baboons and the ease soprano of hooting-owls. Achild of song. I was introduced… Continue reading  I am a descendant of the beat of the ancient songs of home 

“Do you paint your nails? I was feeling Sad and GayTM so I went to CVS and spent too much money on a literal rainbow of nail polish.” Of course my friend Xander paints his nails. My text is an excuse to make sure that two nights later, I’m in his apartment, telling him why I… Continue reading New Life in the Closet