Dear South African girl,
I know we’ve only just met
but I was wondering
if I could take you out sometime.
See,
1 in 4 South African women in are infected with HIV,
1 in 3 black men in the United States are dead or in jail.
So basically the world is saying
that neither of us should be here.
But somehow we are.
So let’s not ask questions.
Let’s forget about the statistics,
the passports,
the language barriers,
Let’s just spend the day together.
Let’s stand on top of Table Mountain and watch the sunrise.
Have the wind dance along the dimples in your cheeks
chiseling proverbs into our faces
the way Moses must have chiseled the ten commandments.
And I know commandment number one says not to make you an idol,
but I’m running out of words to describe you.
Even if I were locked away at Robin Island,
shackled down in a cell smaller than that of Mandela’s,
the sound of your voice would be enough to sustain me.
There’s something about the sweet disposition
emanating from your vocal cords.
The assonance in your accent.
The way you make Zulu, Sotho, and Xhosa
sound like the languages God meant for all of us to speak.
Let’s have a brai in your backyard.
Where over plates of beef and pap,
I’ll have conversations with your grandmother.
A woman who doesn’t know any English
so we speak with the tips of our fingers.
Immersed in cross cultural game of charades
as she tells me all about how you became
the woman you are today.
Let’s sit on top of an old gold mine,
and watch kids play soccer on street corners
made of dust clouds and daydreams.
Understanding that each breath
we have together, is worth more
than any of those lustrous pieces
of unexcavated rock beneath us.
Then, after the sky turns
from robin’s egg blue to raven black,
we’ll meet our friends in town.
Have the sounds house music and hip-hop levitate our limbs
like they were the wings of a reborn phoenix.
Our bodies shifting in symmetry
with the smoke and sounds around us.
Then, I’ll bring you home
and we’ll make love like this was our last chance.
Like Armageddon was watching through our window
and has given us one – no two hours
to envelop ourselves amidst each other one final time.
And when we’re done,
you might have to do like the teachers,
the nurses, and the public service workers
and go on strike,
because its going to take a really big wage increase
to keep you from staying home
when you know what’s here waiting for you.
You are a student at Wits,
paying your own way through this Roman Coliseum of a school.
Carrying books in your hand
as if you were holding the keys to heaven.
You are a young girl in a village in Eastern Cape
who has just become the third wife of a man twice her age.
But still studies by candlelight each night
long after everyone else has gone to sleep.
The one who says she’s going
to grow up and become a doctor to heal the sick
because she’s sick of seeing her brothers and sisters dying
from things that could be prevented.
You are the woman selling fruit in a Hillbrow market,
who has eyes like my mother and a smile like the end of apartheid.
Who always gives me an extra apple,
because she tells me I remind her of her son.
A young man in the military
who gave his life trying to rid his continent
of his dictators, genocide, and the remnants
of a colonial era that this place did not to deserve.
You, are beautiful.
I’m not saying everything will be perfect.
Even the South African flag comes to a crossroads,
but I promise that we’ll work through it.
It’s true that love can be tough,
but sometimes the things you enjoy most in life
are the ones you have to work hardest for.
I know the world can sometimes exoticise you,
stereotype you, and make you into something your not.
But I beg you,
don’t let our ignorance degrade you.
People are always prone to fear the things in life
which they do not understand.
You are nothing less than a queen.
Please, don’t ever forget that.
