I give up my ghost
to make other people’s problems my problems
& I go platinum, I go statue
I go higher, to where the sky droops into heaven
& fall back into my body.
I’ll be shouting & shouting & no one will want to hear me
& sometimes I’ll sing at a funeral & a wedding at the same time
so you know, I’ve lived & died & seen it all
like to marry is a woman problem
like in both cases she is the outfit
& collecting all that darkness may make your tears into stars,
but only in photographs, when the flash is on & the night is on & you are Black
so do not give your presence away
they want you to. they will ask you to
not to the beautiful
or the body like a chandelier of mothballs
or the money thicker than expensive grass.
Borrow yourself to happiness
You wanna be loved. You just wanna be loved
& I know I made dying famous
cause I can sing any song, but it’s a lot harder than it looks.
Anyway, I’m working on a come back
next year. Nothing is impossible
Vuyelwa Maluleke is a writer, theatre practitioner and performance poet who holds an MA in Creative Writing from Rhodes University as well as a BA in Dramatic Arts from the University of Witwatersrand. Maluleke describes her works as post-colonial transcriptions of race, gender and black social life in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Author of the poetry chapbook Things We Lost in the fire, her Manuscript The Blue Album was shortlisted in 2021 for The Sillerman First Book Prize. Maluleke is widely published in publications such as The Boston Annual Review, The Rialto, New Coin South African Poetry Journal and Guernica Magazine.