The series of poems Papel en Blanco emerged as an exercise in therapeutic introspection that turned out to be the best antidote to the pandemic, in 2020.
A gift to heal, to know me, to forgive me, and to allow myself to create something beautiful out of the past.

Xenson Art Space, a small contemporary art space in Kampala was the venue where I exhibited, for the first time, my poems and collages.
Assembling the collages and poems for the Look One Group Exhibition – Edition 3 (February 2023), which brings together new artists every year, was a fascinating exercise for me. I managed to integrate two passions: creating and managing the publication of art and creativity.

The other artists in the exhibition were:
Olivia Nantongo
Mugisha Osbert
Katima Herbert
Paula Nyangabyaki

I

It’s been 12 or 18 months
I don’t really know how many.
Life in Kampala was moving
to the rhythm of the new music in my life
new music in my life.

Everything seemed new to
me even though I already knew it:
the green banana groves,
the blacks walking on the pavement
the lack of electricity and running water

The scandal.
The smell of sweat, that was new.
I repudiated that burning of the skin
how can sunlight at midday cause such a smell?
Now we live together.

Life here brought newness.
Because the banana plantations,
the blacks and the shortages
though they were well known
they had never messed with me before.

But that’s how the African soil is,
It gets into the lungs, it bothers,
it terrifies.
It enchants.
It expands.

Here I get to know who I am.
Who I am not.
To not know me, to terrify me, to disrupt me.
To know me again, to love me.
To accept me.

It was a slow process,
The bodabodas* up and down the road.
The burning terracotta floors
Women selling mangos, lemons,
passion fruits and watermelons.

Life goes by as if in slow motion,
people take their time even to breathe.
They seem anesthetized,
they resent the rush of the impatient
and are left without eagerness.

And I had to learn from this passivity,
from that slowness.
From that wisdom.
I knew how to be.
I waited.

I exhausted myself.
I found myself there.
In Kampala,
in the months of therapy.
Giving me what I needed.

II

A journey of comings and goings.
A journey to the center, inside
to the mirage of the past
I had wanted to erase it.

I molded a life without robust needs.
I understood how little I needed to be well.
I healed a cruel wound
that then ruled my days.

I left a house.
I found a new one,
I built my home.
I have me here.
*Motorbikes

_______________

Two or three times

So many times
his sex was in my hand
his whole mountain
on my thin, cinnamon, warm, innocent skin.

My life was passing
through his caresses
I eroticized a crime
in which I died.

That was his game
I was a pretty, curious, naive girl
when he touched my legs, my bare chest
and I felt pleasure.

I thought that was love
I was confused by his games
I lived in reserve those manoeuvres
of his body in mine.

Unsuspecting
childish
tender
a world of impurities.

Silence did not seem dangerous to me
there was joy in secrecy
but one day
I understood that what he was doing.

History custodies absurd truths.

Because of me

Kisses and caresses
unprepared
often unwanted
stolen

It happened in as many pallets as possible:
the bed with the old mattress, the mother’s house
the farm swimming pool, the family car
on the trip to the sea.

I grew up distracted
thinking I was the most loved child
mistaking power for love
yearning for more of that affection.

Nurturing a silent death
believing it was my fault
how could I ever feel pleasure?
how could I ever feel pleasure?

I asked myself every day
I didn’t know how to explain what I felt
I was afraid of being left without the bliss
without the remorse.

All that I could not name
hurt me insufferably
I suffered the zeal
to be left without the torture.

I repudiated the situation
I loaded my body with resentment
I dedicated myself to forgetting details
I remained silent as long as I could.

Now, then

I

In front of my desk is the window
through the glass I see the almost full moon that lights up the nights
following that changing light I count the days of the month
the time these letters have been flowing in my head
and in my heart.

I try to control it all
when I don’t, I lose my illusion of security
without it nothing makes sense
like now.
like then.

As I write these memories
I delete the past by clicking on my computer
the ‘delete’ option on my phone is not enough
I try to leave no trace
I empty, delete, erase, shake.

I like to think that I’m really doing it
that this is flowing
that I open up space by erasing what no longer matters
what is no longer part of it.
The life that was.

I advise myself that it’s the best thing to do
it’s okay to try to erase the memory
there was so much life in those photos
in those memories that clicked away
I was all that woman there.

I am all this woman here
II

I’ve never known where I came from
nor have I given validity to a few certainties
we’ve always kept quiet about it
in my family, nobody talks about what is done

We omit the transcendence
we silence the legacy
we lost grace
we turned away from reality

We always hid the enemy, the enemy: us

I dared the adventure
Knowledge, trips to the village, and other dances
I was curious about the world outside
not a word from them.

In my family, we knew how to die with words burning in our throats.

We don’t speak truths
we fought with the ordinary
we never tell each other
we live anaesthetized.

How can love hold a trench?
If there were only five of us
how did we get it so wrong?
we are imperfect.

III

I kneel before this imperfection
before the fracture of the world that spins around the sun
before the selfishness of the earth that revolves around itself
you can’t get out of here unscathed.

I clicked again
I deleted some photos, the emails
the documents of the hectic life
that today confuses me

I am not capable of ending this life
I love it, I feel it is mine
it is the only thing that belongs to me
all at once.

Curiosity and intrigue
if this wouldn’t have happened to me
what about my life without the theft
without the damage, without the fracture

I am no longer a child
not a little girl
not such a liar
not a big anything.

I’m terrified in the closeness of all that I am
nothing and everything
one flesh holding the soul:
the whole universe.

Shadow and light lead me
they manoeuvring the fall
as if at some point the ground will appear
because it does, always.

Something to remember

Where are the worlds of which I myself have spoken
where my body dances naked free from danger and stalking
where the cup of chocolate remains warm
where is the breeze whipping my face and the sea oxidizing my skin?

I don’t know if I’m here anymore
I don’t know if I’ll get there
my hope is tied to this world
in my throat the fire burns with joy.

So much life overflows me
it makes me tired; it makes me sick
it seduces me
it soothes me and makes me happy.

I want never to forget this:
the tenderness with which I embraced my pain
the days in the little hell of my room
the texts in my diary.

The glory of seeing myself
choosing an active life
the courage to heal
the grace and beauty.

Brave

When the breeze meets my face
the pores receive it with grace
embrace it with zeal
whisper of pleasures.

My body becomes extreme
it knows of fine skins and rough ones
it knows also of souls
that battle between song and song.

I tell myself, every now and then
that I am undecipherable meaning,
an invitation to integrate.

A divine whole:
my hands and my toes
my flaccid breasts and also my black eyes
life is a romance between my point of view and the world.

I gather myself in this embrace
in the spontaneity of light and shadow
in the heritage of this dance.

I am charm
I am heroine:
brave
a complete woman.