Zaki Mlaba
BASED IN SOUTH AFRICA
“I am a black and queer experience. I was born, raised and currently reside in Johannesburg, South Africa. I am a copywriter by profession and a poet at heart. In 2017, I self-published my first collection of poetry, titled, “Smells like Love and Other Bad Decisions.”
Zaki aims to work on projects that are inclusive, intentional and innovative. They are purposeful with their words. Present in their world. Consistent with their work.
“I write, I think. I think I write.”
This fighting is freedom
This fighting is freedom
Fighting for what frees me.
Fighting for what I fear.
Fighting for the feeling of this love.
Fighting for the freedom of my heart.
Fighting for a heart
That implodes towards love.
Fighting for a heart
That explodes because of love.
Fighting for a heart
That lives,
And relives.
That loves,
And loves again.
Thought I was prepared
For any pain.
Turns out I wasn’t even prepared
For any of the pleasure.
Always ready to revive my heart,
After all the loss.
Always ready to unravel my heart.
In all the lives.
Fighting for what frees me.
Fighting for what I fear.
This fighting is freedom.
Masc and Femme: The Confession
I am Queer and Black.
I am never one without the other.
I am feminine and masculine.
I am never one without the other.
I never want to be one without the other.
Each and both, individually and simultaneously beautiful, powerful and magical.
It took me a long time to fall in love the romance that breathes
Between my feminine and masculine.
The lives and loves that exist between them are not here to be understood;
Just respected.
Their lives just want to live.
Their loves just want to live.
I’m sorry if you’re confused by my energies
But please don’t disturb my energies.
Don’t interrupt my peace.
Don’t invalidate my existence.
I am because they are.
They are because I let them be.
My feminine.
My masculine.
They exist.
They co-exist.
They are.
Because I am.
When I think: Unrequited love
When I think about
unrequited love,
I think about the pain of it all.
I think about looking at someone
and them looking back
but looking through.
When I think about
unrequited love,
I think about the peace of it all.
I think about love within;
and love without.
Neither here nor there.
When I think about
unrequited love,
I think about the hurt.
Hurt that hides.
Wounded.
Waiting.
When I think about
unrequited love,
I think about healing.
Healing from a love that won’t get to live.
Healing from longing.
Longing that you have to let go.
When I think about
unrequited love,
I think about reality.
I think about a real love.
I think about the lover and the beloved.
Who am I?
Who are they?
When I think about
unrequited love,
I think about dreaming.
Dreaming about wanting.
Needing to want.
Why do we always want?
When I think about
unrequited love,
I think about falling.
Forever falling
into the empty;
the empty of love.
When I think about
unrequited love,
I think about feeling.
I think about so much feeling.
Feeling of flying;
into myself;
away from myself.
When I think about
unrequited love,
So hopeful.
So helpless.
the only thing that’s finite is: time
but like the hands of an unbroken clock
you have to keep on moving.
you keep manifesting
into different versions of yourself
every day.
who you are lies in the whispers
that you try to ignore.
who you are
is alive in the thoughts that you try to suppress.
your vision of you
shouldn’t die
because the beauty of you manifests
into shades of midnight
and rays of sunshine
with cascades of wind;
Let the wind take you where it needs to take you,
welcome, whatever you appears
softly and with purpose
but do not lie to yourself
because you could lose yourself to the wind
or you could turn into it
and the wind might feel nice but it can’t be home to a body
you need to find the home in you.
you need to find the home in the body
that you call yours;
that you want to call yours
that you see yourself in
because whatever body that you live in,
is yours entirely.
your queer
like your body
doesn’t need to be explained.
shift me
transgress me
but it’s my queer.
your queer could explode you
from the closet of your fears
but if the closet is your haven
don’t be pushed/pulled.
love your queer
accept what’s offered
without guilt or shame
don’t be swayed by any patriarchal
heteronormative ideals pushed against you
don’t be stained by tainted love
disguised in your queer.
don’t be pushed into drawing
your own blood by the thoughts
of you not being enough.
you have to see you in your queer
not what you ‘should look like’
because you shouldn’t fade away
in other people’s queer.
follow yourself blindly into your queer
into your humxn
into you
towards your love
because whatever it is
whatever you are or could be
is love
and we’re given love with the
fear of heartbreak
but we shouldn’t stop
because our lives will always be
both tender and terrifying
Breathing
As I think about all the breaths that I’ve taken.
As I think about all the breaths that I’ve forgotten to take.
As I listen to the air passing through.
As I feel the air moving between.
As my love expands.
As my love experiences.
As I live through loving.
As I love through living.
As I hold the moments of realising.
As I let go of the moments of releasing.
As I think about how easy it is, to breathe.
As I think about how hard breaths can be.
As I think about existing.
As I think about exhaling.
I think about experiences.
I think about evolving.
As I find reasons to love breathing.
As I find reasons to live through the breaths.
As I am becoming through breathing.
As I am,
Breathing. In and out.
Breaking. Down and through.
Becoming. Because of being.
Being. Because I am becoming.
As I am.
Never been a place.
Always an idea.
A dream.
A moment.
Many other moments;
But never been a place.
Always been a simple word
And a difficult understanding.
An uncomplicated meaning.
A fated and fleeting feeling.
Not just a word.
Never just a feeling.
Never just.
We were warned not to make homes
out of human beings.
But how often is human,
what taught you what home is.
How often is human,
the only home you know.
Who taught you what home is?
Who taught you what home feels like?
Who showed you the way home?
Where do you go,
when you need to go home?
Where do you go,
when you need to return to yourself?
Where do you go,
when you need to live?
Where do you go,
when you need to love?
Where do you go,
when you need to leave?
Home.
The word.
The meaning.
The feeling.
The place.
Fated. Feeling. Forever.
My kind of blue
All blues
You were always miles away
But you were always there;
Until you weren’t.
You were always miles away
Until Miles came on.
When Miles came on,
We had never been so close.
I felt you and we didn’t even touch.
We spoke with no words.
We loved through the miles
Because of Miles.
You were always miles away
But when I need to be close to you,
I know where to go.
When I remember you,
I remember all the blues.
I remember that you encouraged me to feel all the blues;
To feel every blue.
You were always miles away
But you are always right here;
Through the blues.
You are all the blue in me.
You are all the blues in me.
I am
Because
You were.
Blue in green
The jazz disguised the green for blue.
The love disguised the blue for green.
I thought I was the green for you.
I thought I was the new beginnings for you.
I thought that you wanted to grow with me.
I thought that we could make our own garden.
I thought.
I believed that blue could be enough for you.
I believed that my blues weren’t too blue for you.
I believed my blue was the blue in your green.
I believed our love for the blues
Could overcome the blues.
I believed my blue was the blue in your green.
I believed I was for you.
I believed.
My thoughts and beliefs weren’t enough.
The jazz and the love couldn’t disguise.
My blue was not the blue in your green.
So what
You will forever be
A question
Unanswered.
You will forever be
A first love;
Lived.
My love for you
Didn’t start in jazz.
But that’s where it found itself.
That’s where it keeps bumping into you.
That’s where I keep remembering you.
Why did we argue about who loved them more?
How did I know that you would be so important?
How did I fall in love
So quickly
And so slowly?
Why did I not tell you that I loved you?
What if I’ll never stop loving you?
Questions unanswered.
A first love lived.
So what if we were?
So what if we aren’t?
So what?