a sluggish but proud zulu man
stopped me in my trek to no-
where as my fingers searched
for a grip in the dehydrated sou-
thern sand. he held a leather-bound
book with the words “the holy bible”
struggling to stay embedded. befitting
resemblance of the seminar he gave me;
scuffling through testimonies and biblical
verses that lead into various explanations
which were suspected. i asked him if he
believed anything he had just said. he
confessed, he’d been questioning
everything he had memorised and read.
he guided me into a tangent about
his distain for the greedy and the
need for the restoration of his ancestors
land. i asked why black people get
massacred when we articulate our
desire for economic empowerment and grass.
he listed to me everything which he was
taught was wrong with the indigenous
people, which, supposedly, justified the past.
i stopped him in his own trek through self-hate,
anguish and pity and i said this to him,
“if you change the way black people think,
you change the way white people get money...”

-t.m