you come across a tweet by a white
girl your age. “three things black girls
don’t have: long hair. a boyfriend.
fathers.” you think of an unlit
candle gathering dust, of a gust
of tattered curtain lining, the absence
of a whole tooth.
you wonder at this world where
blackness in girl form is a round
and rotating emptiness
that one can hold in a disappearing
hand.
put it on the table and a hole appears.
put it on the ground
and a hole appears. put it in a
cup and it is no longer ‘cup’ but a
broken thing.
round it out even more. make it
the size of a room where there
is no one here, sitting at this desk,
writing this poem.
Manthipe Moila is a 30-year-old poet from Johannesburg, South Africa. She holds a BA Hons. in English Literature from Rhodes University. She has been published in New Contrast, Stirring, Kalahari Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Agbowó, Hole in the Head Review, Thimble, Hotazel Review, Watershed Review and Saranac Review. She is currently based in Seoul, South Korea.