jambula in my heart

More than anything, I enjoy nothingness. 
It feels like cotton candy surrounding me from all over. 
It feels like cotton balls, more cotton balls than the whole world,
 stuck in my mouth and nose and ears and all over my hairs and hairs 
all over my body and crinoline but not itchy and soft but firm like cutting into a fresh fish
 but not giving way like skin under taatas hunting knife. 
nothing is like burying the fish insides and fish poops from the dead fish in the ground. 
It is dying and it gasps in the air for water, for air, like falling upwards from the ocean into the earth and onto our land, the earth has taken its breath...it is nothing now in the earth. 
But it’s not bad. It is part of taata and Muti's lettuces and tomatoes 
 it is the air-the dark green air that hums with energy and angels and smells like sun and fish and fire and smoke and tears. 
It is the nothing but power, I can’t hold it but it surrounds my littlest bones and caresses my scabbed knees in the fingers of the wind. 
It whispers of the unexplored parts of the forest that taata has forbidden but I will see one day. 

A young boy sits on a rock watching other kids play at Lido Beach. Mogadishu, Somalia. ©Osman [@osmanao]

Women sell variety of peppers at a roadside market in Oshodi. Lagos, Nigeria. ©Mayor Otu

A portrait of Xhosa dancers in Mt. Frere, Eastern Cape, South Africa. ©Anton Crone