CHWAYITA NGAMLANA

They say we do this to get the attention we never had, that we weren’t held and rocked enough as children. They say that we didn’t have all the necessary colours on our dinner plates, that our ancestors don’t know us and so we are weakened. That’s what they say. They say that our mothers dipped their bread in bowls full of Namaqua wine all day every day, that they binged until they repeatedly punched their own pregnant bellies before passing out on a bed of faeces. Something must have gone horribly wrong, they say, and now the world is full of degenerates – damaged, deprived and depraved degenerates. They who say this will never approach us. They, who refuse to make themselves known to us, lurk somewhere outside the borders of identity. The walls are low but never will they climb over or crawl through underground tunnels to meet us. They are restrained and cautious and so they remain clueless and nameless. We call them The Theyz.

The Theyz hate the Gayz.

They say we love to hate publicly and hate to love privately. Hate to live honestly, always ready to act aggressively. They say we’re lost and confused and barren and heathen. They say they want to give us something that we’ve clearly never had before – something that will make us dig our nails deep into the earth as we make sounds that we never thought we could make. They promise us a magical time; the right size, right colour, right temperature and right girth will titillate our taste buds like a lemon-flavoured ice lolly. They promise to have the cure for our misdemeanours. Soon, through this formula, we will see the way and the light.

And yes, they’re not wrong, The Theyz! Please, give us lots and lots of ice lollies dipped in 80% cocoa Lindt chocolate and covered in candy-coated mini marshmallows. We will take the lollies but you can keep the bodies. The bodies are made of muscle and entitlement. Detach the lollies before they spoil. Don’t give us lollies tied to tradition, tied to ambiguous customs, lollies that are attached to bodies that demand love and respect and spit in our faces when we refuse to get on our knees. We don’t want lollies that make us question our existence and worth. We don’t want lollies attached to bodies that snap their jaws when they speak and suck the spirit right out of our bones, leaving our skin black and blue. Give us those lollies, we’ll still eat them. We like them purple and oily, preferably made of silicone.

The Theyz say we make them sick. That nothing we feel is real and that our hearts are just full of lacerations and scars that we will one day recover from. They say we are bruised, broken and battered. They pray for our deliverance and repentance each day, they say. Oh, bless The Theyz. So afraid to like us. So afraid that they might hit it then they like it then they look it then they are it then they need it then they lick it then they crave it then they chase it then they love it then they marry it until they die it. The Theyz are in trouble – big, big trouble.

The Theyz hate the Gayz because our freedom is loud and wild. They theyer all day about us and we watch them theyering while they sit on their thatched mats on the floor, legs crossed and tightly shut. But we know why the caged bird sings. We know that what they really want to do is open all their limbs far and wide, they want to spread them apart from one side of the hut to the other. We know that they yearn for the breeze. The same breeze that toughens our skin.

The Theyz do not sleep. We hear them whisper as we walk into their stores. They say we want to be boys and so they tug at our baggy jeans, undo our bikini tops, try to cut our dreadlocks and wipe down our black lips. They want the ill-fitting things to fit, they want the upside down things to stay upright, they want all the piercings concealed, they want our faces removed. We don’t listen though, we never do. We just knock all their shit off their shelves and sprinkle cheeto dust all over their hair. We walk out singing the national anthem, we don’t give a fuck.

The Theyz are afraid that we might one day become mayors and presidents. They’re afraid that we will run across the city with paint-cans in hand and colour all the streets rainbow. The Theyz hate colour. They’re afraid that we’ll discover the power of our voices and start cutting all their straight and narrow structures down, that we will wave a magic wand and turn them all to plastic statues, that we will decapitate them and paint their hair yellow, that we will change their names to Mannequin Bob and carry them with us wherever we go. They don’t want to be seen with us in public.

Still, The Theyz can’t help but watch us. They love to watch our tongues coil while our hands disappear into each other’s yellow checkered pants – our yellow brick roads. We see them through the corners of our eyes. We see them flick their multi-coloured beans and stroke their golden lollies in the dark corners of the clubs where no one can see them. They’ve got their eyes on us, oh yes, we know they want to fuck us. At the bar, they pretend to not see us, they no longer want to serve us. Now, the circus has begun – it’s The Theyz versus the Gayz. It’s liddy now, mayhem now, we’re about to fuck someone up now. They don’t know the hell they just walked into. We’re about to make headlines now. We go vodka to lips to head, vodka to lips to head, then fist to face to ground, fist to face to ground. The time is 3am, the fun has just begun.

The Theyz hate the Gayz…

Because The Theyz are the Gayz!