Belinda Zhawi
Belinda Zhawi is a Zimbabwean born writer & educator currently based in London. Belinda was the 2016/17 Institute of Contemporary Arts Associate Poet & she’s co-founder & host of, poetry social & press, BORN::FREE. Belinda is the author of Small Inheritances (ignitionpress, 2018)


Perched on the corner of a bending road, past the pub, past the side door, past dancing wisps of smoke - ganja for laughter, cigarettes for stained lungs Past the outside walls, painted a deep colour that called to me like a dream of a place I had never been yet missed - always thick with nostalgia & longing Past the dreaded uncles who never left the smoking area, past my problems & his or hers Through the backdoor - past security, past the bar squeezed next to the crowded cloakroom, squeezing through bodies, smiling apologies, squeezing to the back past the kick drum competing with drunken laughter, past the tall, short haired woman, in men’s dress, dancing with an invisible partner
Inside that cocoon of both chaos & order, where the music pulsed with my blood, the road between my legs widened The amount of times I fell in love with men whose names had been plucked out of holy books & liked to hide behind scripture Of amber eyes, dark rings on both iris Dark rings on both eyelid Of jet hair, waved & cleanly sliced to define broad noses, high foreheads & lips made for kissing but also blackened by lies & years of tar Of eyes that twinkled in I love you, you’re my soulmate Of the persistence of a mosquito trapped inside a red light bulb Oh, look at all these fine brothers - with all their talents, all that beauty Give me your smile, give me your eyes, come here - give me a kiss With those blackened lips, help me forget the abandon I carry in the very pits of my belly The man at the front cries a dark tunnel of displacement between a difficult past and an unknown future into his horn Sun rises on the revellers, cumulus fades painting a plain sky with cirrus like brushstrokes. When rain clouds gather they do not fall on one roof alone All these shiny towers beside boarded up windows beside monochrome cafes beside another closed up venue where I loved and danced When rain clouds gather they do not fall on one roof alone
Sun rises cumulus fades painting a plain sky with cirrus like brushstrokes End of an era