kagablog

I am astounded by how much I miss you

By how many times I’ve replayed every detail in my head

Until I have no idea which part is fictional, which part happened which part mattered

Such a short space of time, so much intensity

So much I admired

You gave me so much

I am astounded by how much and how deeply I still love you

my heart has been silent for far too long.

Every time I’m deceived I have the same reaction

Wondering if anything I felt or thought was real

If it was all in my imagination

Were you ever supportive or kind to me

Were you ever really involved in my life

Did I just project a lot of desire for closeness with someone onto you?

So many men suffer from the delusion

that there is only one way to use a woman

Make no mistake, you used me

For my mind

For my heart

For my time when you needed me

For my encouragement when you doubted yourself

Then you found someone more convenient

So that talking to me has become inappropriate

And when you talk to me now

You’ll use words like we and us, you’ll call me dude or man pat my back for ten seconds or less instead of hugging me, or you’ll hold on too long in a moment of guilt then throw me back

And I’ll feel dizzy, nauseous and bruised

I’ll look at you like I don’t get it, you’ll look at her and share a pitying smile

Like what an idiot, she thought she had a chance with you

If you think about me at all

You will realize what you did was just as wrong

As if you’d slept with me and then never called again

But I understand why it’s easier for you not to think about it

Why you will keep ignoring me until you feel enough time has passed

For it not to be awkward

for my feelings to pass

you will tell me some line about being so busy

that will insult my intelligence

but this time, instead of pretending to believe you

and dispensing my love like free soap in a public bathroom

I will tell you to fuck off, to stop wasting my time

so I can find someone who’ll actually love me back

you don’t care about me at all

Next time I’ll find it in me to ignore you.

You sat on my bed your back against the wall

I sat on your lap

I noticed your eyes

brown with shades of olive green, long eye lashes

I thought, they’re a perfect mix of color, thick like acrylic paint seamlessly mixed with a paintbrush

I like your lips

Your taste in music

Your gentlemanly ways

your hesitation your need to ask my permission

the way you can be gentle but fun

taking parts of me with small careful bites

keeping a little mystery, teasing me

I warn you, I said, I like things my way, I’m difficult

I like a challenge, you answered

And I smiled, good answer, I thought, but I wonder if you mean it

If we will get to know each other like each other, keep seeing each other

if we’ll be good to each other

keep having fun keep being honest with each other

If we’ll keep our promise not to hurt each other

I hope so you seem sweet enough

I know that you consider me to be

more trouble than I’m worth

I am trouble, there’s no question

certainly if a man was going to cheat again

he’d chose a woman more discreet than me

I have a big mouth

I’m unable to hold back my affection

I want to love and be loved so badly

I wanted you all the time

She said she found me aggressive

I dug my teeth and nails into your skin

I would’ve written my words all over your body if you’d have let me

Marked you permanently

Her words hurt so much because they were true

I do go for what I want, I know no other way

It was a power struggle

I put my cards out on the table

and I lost

I know that the potential to get caught again is too great for you,

I know you’ve come to know

The strange stability of being with a mental case

Versus an unknown quantity, a stranger

Crazy in ways you can’t yet predict

Unforgiving when you cheat

In your mind

a fling is supposed to be fun, to involve great sex, moments of emotional support, moments of understanding, a sad good bye with no consequences for you

I know I fucked it all up by having feelings

by yelling back when she confronted me

I knew you would never be strong enough to leave her

Too much guilt, too much self doubt

Too in need of a pillar to hold you up

But I am not sorry

Better to know it before I was trapped again

I saw you that night

The glasses the bald spot the clothes that hang

The nervous voice the quiet

You’re a spectator, not a star

I’m grateful you stopped me from falling for you.

I’ve been thinking about you a lot

I know I’ve done things that are easier than this

(It’s always easier when you can see and touch someone whenever you want to)

When the biggest cruelty you can inflict

Are your words your actions your inactions

And not the distance between the two of you

I’ve done things that are easier than this

But I’ve also done things that are harder (and that were way less worth it)

When I think about how easy it is to talk to you

About anything -serious, funny, intellectual, personal

How we get things about each other:

Getting a tattoo of the words to the station of metro

My favorite Afrikaans poem and your reaction

I think of the way I’ve told you things about my past that

Should’ve made you run or cringe, and you just said, yeah, it’s cool

Like, I still like you, what are you talking about?

(and nothing you could tell me would bother me either)

The relief I felt, every time, still astounded, but so happy,

like a hammer to the back of my knees, hitting softly

This feeling of, I can be myself with someone and it’s ok maybe

You say, I like that you’re really open about sex

And I say I like that about you too I like that we like the same things

That I’m not much too much for you

In so many ways

you make me think and laugh and moan and feel deeply

I think, yeah it’s hard, baby,

But we don’t have it that bad (it’s better to have it from far away than not at all)

I think of myself

Going about my life

Sure that I was going to keep thinking things

and writing them down

Without anyone really understanding them or getting me or wanting to

I thought about how lonely I felt before

And I think, yeah, it’s hard

This distance is hard

But it’s so much better than not having it

There are times when the physical desire is so strong

But it’s just time anyway

Just days, weeks, hours, minutes

Time passes quickly

If what you’re waiting for is worth is

It is to me, I know

I wish you knew that

You make me happy already

If you only knew

How much I want to love you and know you

And how far I would go to prevent myself from ever hurting you

Being single sucks, you know?
It’s the worst. Freedom shmeedom,
you end up talking out loud to yourself
to fill up the endless

silences.

Ek wil my woorde versigtig kies
Ek wil nie hê om enige misverstand

jy het my teleurgestel
meer as ek weet hoe om te beskryf

my kop is vol mis
Ek kan nie slaap in die nag
Ek drink te veel kafeïen in die dag
om wakker te bly
om die angs so ver as moontlik

ek kan nie fokus op enigiets wat
Ek wonder hoe ek sal kry deur middel van hierdie tyd in my lewe

en jy
jy het die vermetelheid om kwaad te wees met my
om my te vertel dat ek was die een wat links
toe jy die een
wat geloop het oor ons
‘n lang tyd gelede
en ek was die een
met die moed
om werklik te verlaat jy

Ek wil jou om te verstaan
dat dit nie saak hoe hard dit is
Ek betreur nie
selfs nie vir ‘n minuut.

1

Ek weet wat die waarheid is nou
en dit’s ok (soveel as die waarheid ooit is)
Ons maak in die gees in die liggaam in die hart
maar maak dit saak?
daar is onse gevoelens
en dan is daar

Wat dit is

Dit
ek en jy
maar geen ons

Ek het net een vraag vir jou in elk geval
Wat gaan ons nou doen?
(Wat doen ek met alles wat ek voel vir jou?)

2

Ek het gesê ek hou van die terme van liefde
in Afrikaans beter as in Engels
hulle is nie so veelvuldig
Hulle het meer spesifieke betekenis
hulle klink meer opreg (As iemand sê: jy is so special
dit klink nie belaglik nie)
jy het gesê, praat Afrikaans, ek wil dit hoer
vertel my wat die woorde is, ek wil weet
maar ek het geweier (ek’t nie geweet as ek sou jammer wees nie later)

3

Jy
het olyfgroen oë
wat gevorm soos amandelblomme
tande soos ‘n vampier
jy neem om die klein versigtig byt
lang hare wat kinkels om my indeks vingers
‘n gedagte wat weet hoe om’ n uitdaging om te aanvaar
wat kan ontleed
wat kan praat praat praat met my vir ure
jy het ‘n hart wat groot genoeg is
wat ruimte vir baie baie lief
(Jy sien ten minste vier of vyf vroue op ‘n tyd, en jy is lief vir ons almal, jy daarop aandring)
Ek het net spasie in my hart en in my siel
vir een (Ek het net tyd, ek het net wil wees, spesiale genoeg wees om met een)
Wat moet ek doen sê jy nou
Wat gaan ons doen?……

the build -up was intense

steamy references to Anais Nin

and the sex scene under the stars in Everything is Illuminated

i’ve never had facebook chat sex talks like this with a stranger, i said

I’ll go slow, he promised, so you’ll remember every detail

he had a line about an orgasm- about how i’d feel it so intensely he’d feel my heart beat in my clit

(it was so lovely i wanted to steal it, but I forgot to write it down)

I’m wary of dating writers, I told him (a lot of the writers i’ve known are kinder on the page than in person)

don’t worry, he said

when we met he grabbed me and kissed me in public

(ballsy, I thought and just as hot)

he said: you have to stop apologizing and explaining yourself

just be who you are, i like it

i wanted to be myself with someone more than anything

he said: let’s not have sex yet, i like it to mean something

i nodded, of course, i said (but in my head, I groaned a little. It had been months for me)

he told me that my eyes were beautiful- the way my irises dilated quickly when i was excited about something he said he liked my accent he like observing me (and i like being analyzed so closely)

i felt lucky

we walked out of a hotel room holding hands

he kissed me on the street, in front of a curious Bedford audience

i thought, maybe i could get used to this,

i was a smiling idiot, thinking wow, that was easy

i could’ve walked right into traffic, and it would’ve been ok, I thought

this night was a small present

he sent me a chat message the next day

I was goofy, I smiled, wrote, I was just thinking of you

he said, listen, i know you like me, but I don’t want to lie to you

he gave me a laundry list: he said i was pretty, funny, smart, a great combination, he added

but i didn’t feel a spark

he said, you didn’t do anything wrong.

i said, ok, but I thought, of course I did, I always do, it’s always my fault

a slap to the face where the hard side of someone’s palm makes contact with your cheekbone

i’m just not into you, he added

I was silent

are you ok? he asked eventually

i thought of the real problems I was having at the time

this was tiny and I knew it

but it was an extra aggravation, unnecessary pain

I’d just wanted to be liked or cared about or even loved

to be reminded that I could be

that I could do the same for someone

I didn’t deserve it

his rejection hurt much more than I wanted to let on

yeah, we’re cool i said (as the tears streamed down my face)

we both wished each other well

and never spoke again.

You have a really sweet smile

Long eyelashes

A way with a phrase

With words

The kind of lips full enough to be made for kissing

I got a little scared, for a second there, but I’m ok, really

You say, I want to be sweet to you, cause I have a good feeling about you, about us

And the truth is, so do I

I don’t want to write about anything yet

Because I’m pretty sure I’m really going to like you

(I can’t remember the last time things went well enough to not have to analyze them, but maybe I’m due for something good, after everything. Please be good to me)

You ask for the truth

You say I am honest with you

Just say it, what you feel what you think

I mistrust your lack of agenda

I know you better than that already

I think

Yes, fine, ok,

I give you lip service

I tell you what I know you want to hear

You tell me you are going out with another girl tonight

And I say, have fun babe

Because I’m supposed to play it cool at this stage

I’m supposed to understand

That you are incapable of monogamy

Incapable of giving me what I need

That we will have sex we’ll have good times together

We’ll laugh and talk for hours and kiss and connect

And it’ll all be great

Until the next day

When you want your space

Which really means

That what you want is to go fuck someone else

For the experience

For kicks

For the chance to say you’ve done it

for the chance not to own me or be owned

And the lists will grow

The ones I keep in my head:

The lists of all the wrongs and rights

My good behavior

My restraint

Versus your desires

Your need to fuck anything with a pulse

Pin anything that moves against a bed

Against a wall

In a bathroom somewhere or a sauna

Going for coffee means going for coffee in my world

Male friends are male friends

Sleeping with you is like playing roulette

A matter of time before I contract something

Your lists: your conquests, your lovers, your partners

Your hierarchy, your primary lover, your feelings

My heart in pieces ( you say, I care, Danila, oh the irony.

You don’t really. You care only so far as it affects you, who are we kidding here? When you need me, I’m here when you don’t, I need to disappear, I know the game, I’ve played it before, just not in years)

You are angry with the women who put themselves first in your life- your mother, ex- lovers, ex-girlfriends,

And I am angry with you for putting me 29th, number 77, or 200th on your list

If you really must know how it is I feel about you right now

(it’s unspecial, unloved, another meaningless experience in a sea of hundreds, if you’re wondering, that’s how I feel, since you wanted to know, I thought I’d tell you, thanks for asking)

Point number one: you make me laugh, really hard, and often

I want to write kids’ books, you said, cause kids are just that zany, they’d get it, you know?

I was impressed

Point number two: you’d been to Toronto, and eaten Ethiopian food with your hands there

And travelled a lot

All over the US and Central America

Point number three: you have and lovely lips and gorgeous floppy hair

But you insist that you haven’t cut it in months

And that you’re low maintenance

A lack of vanity in the beautiful kills me

But that was nothing, really

You said, I sometimes drunk text girls at 3am

But not in a dirty way, don’t worry

I said, it’s funny that you think that would bother me

You smiled, I said, I’m going to expect one this morning

The next day

You sent me a poem instead

it was descriptive and beautiful

And specific and imaginative

And hot, it was sexy

I thought, god, this guy can have me any way he wants me ( and I hope he comes to visit me soon)

You said, it’s really hard being a white male writer

I said, it could be worse, you could be a white male KKK member who wants to write

And you wrote a hate poem on the spot

Disturbing but funny

Disarming in the way that the fearless have

when there are no boundaries to break, just laughter

At life and how surreal all of it is

You said, I’m going to draw you something

It’ll be stick figures

Or so you’ll think

But it’ll really be an abstract expressionist work

That will show you the existential depths of my soul

It’ll be blue

I say, mine will be orange, lime green, maybe pink

Like a desert, you say

And I think, you make me laugh, guy, with your lanky frame, and your words that tumble out so easily

and that is really something these days

you have no idea how seriously I’ve been taking life

and how overwhelmed I’ve been feeling lately

My mother says
That I give other people great advice
i can always read their situations well
I understand their mistakes
She wonders why my love life is such a shambles
When it comes to others people’s lives, she tells me
You’re so smart and insightful
I think what she doesn’t understand is
When it comes to my own life
I have needs (sexual, intellectual, emotional)
And most of all
I have feelings

Can you tell us a little bit about “Got No Secrets”?

Got No Secrets is a collection of twelve short stories, told in the first person, about the private lives of twelve different women. Some of the stories are set in my native South Africa, some are set in Toronto, Canada, and one is set in the States. The stories explore the parts of ourselves that we keep hidden or feel ashamed of, even if they are a big part of who we are. They explore the idea of what it means to be good-and what it means to be able to live with yourself, no matter what decisions you’ve made. Some of them deal with addiction, drugs, and using sex to escape. Others are about childhood and relationships, and existential crises. They were all really interesting to research, and enjoyable to write. I tried to understand what people experienced, to live in their heads and hearts as much as I could. I hope they all seemed authentic and real- and that the characters felt like real people that you know after reading about them.

What’s your background with writing?

I studied Creative Writing at York University in Toronto and at the Humber College School for writers. I wrote even as a young kid, and I always loved reading. I guess I got more serious about writing as I got through university. I always knew it was what I loved to do above all other things, but my confidence grew as I got older. It’s important to believe in your own voice and in your own writing. I’m still working on it as we speak.

Who are your inspirations/influences?

I’m really influenced and inspired by some of the writers from where I’m from in South Africa: Rian Malan, Marlene Van Niekerk, Aryan Kaganof, Andre Brink, K Sello Duiker, Phaswane Mpe, JM Coetzee, Rene Bohnen, Michelle Mcgrane, Toast Coetzer, Melinda Ferguson and more.

I love American writers like JD Salinger, EE cummings, and Charles Bukowski. Also, Darcey Steinke is another writer I really admire, and Shannon Burke, whose book Safelight I just finished reading last night.

I also love Hanif Kureishi. I love Heather O’Neill, her writing changed my life. Also Zoe Whittall, Camilla Gibb, Richard Scrimger and Nino Ricci. Also, Julia Tausch, and Ibi Kaslik.

I love Nicole Aube’s writing a lot. Chaka Reid’s writing is great too.

I’ve been reading a few memoirs lately too: I loved Kathryn Borel’s Corked, and Nic Sheff’s Tweak, and also, Jeannette Walls’ the Glass Castle. I love the Israeli writers too- Assaf Gavron, Etgar Keret, Eshkol Nevo, Zeruya Shalev. I could probably name a lot more- there is a lot of fantastic writing out there. I really love to read, and often read one or two books a week. I spend thousands of dollars on books, easy, and belong to two libraries. It’s so important to read a lot. I find writers who are brave- who search for the truth about why things are, who are not afraid to “go there” with complex or difficult issues- whose characters ask themselves the difficult questions- are the ones who inspire me most. There are a lot of fantastic writers out there.

What was it like working with Tightrope and Modjaji Books?

Working with Tightrope was awesome- they’re really a family of creative, powerful individuals and it was a total honour and pleasure to work with them. Halli Villegas, my publisher, is a force of nature- a kind and intelligent visionary. She’s a great poet and writer, who really understands where writers are coming from with their work. Shirarose Willensky, my editor, was excellent- she really understood the writing and what I wanted to do. She helped me to develop it and improve it , while sharing my vision for the characters and the book. I can’t say enough good things about her. It was an incredible experience working with her, and having her as a friend is equally great.

Working with Modjaji was great too. Colleen Higgs, my publisher in SA was wonderful to work with. It’s been an amazing experience all around

Who was responsible for the cover/book design?

Karen Correia Da Silva of Tightrope Books was the designer. She did an incredible job of making the book look beautiful. She’s really, really talented. Vanya du Toit, the South African photographer did the cover shot. She does amazing work.

I’m so privileged to call them both my friends.

What are you doing in terms of marketing/publicity?

Tightrope are doing a lot of it. I’m trying to do as many readings as I can, which I love doing, and trying to get people to review it as much as possible. The National Post’s Afterword column invited me to write a week’s worth of entries about South African writing, so that was fantastic.

Salty Ink, a great website about Atlantic Canadian writing invited me to do something similar about Canadian writing. I’m just trying to do as many of these types of things as I can. I’m always so thrilled to be asked.

Do you have any stories from book signings/radio interviews/etc.?

Stories from readings: so far, they’ve all been really fun. The launch in Toronto at T Cafe was so much fun. I loved reading the next month at Ben Mcnally Books too. I just did a reading in Halifax, at the Company House, and had a great time. The only thing I can think of is that in Halifax, I introduced one of the stories that I read completely wrongly. My editor and I had talked about changing some titles of the stories, which totally made sense cause I find creating titles the hardest part sometimes. I had planned to read the story A Tiny Thud (a title I had changed) so I started talking about what inspired it…then instead, started reading the story ‘Just Quietly Do It’ instead… and I realized it as I was reading it. When I was done, I explained it, and it was fine… but it really funny. I’d told a story that was a total non sequitor- not related to Just Quietly Do It all. The lovely audience thankfully didn’t seem to mind.

What is the name of your blog and what can readers expect to find there?

I blog through Aryan Kaganof’s writing community, called the Kagablog. Aryan is a South African writer, poet, and filmmaker, and he has created a true artist community that I’m so grateful to be a part of. Mostly just my writing can be found there, but sometimes photos, and other arty stuff.
What projects do you have planned for the future?

A novel that I’m in the middle of writing called ‘Too Much on the Inside’. Also a graphic novel about the Israeli/Palestinian situation that I’m working on with an illustrator friend of mine. And more to come!

Is there anything else about you we should know?

I love writing. It really makes me happy to express myself and to use it as a tool to try to understand why things happen.

this interview first published on walter’s blog: http://walterrhein.blogspot.com/

Danila Botha was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She later moved to Toronto, Canada, where she studied Creative Writing at York University, and Humber College for Writers. She volunteered with Na-me-res and Ve’ahavta, organizations benefiting the homeless, which inspired many of the stories in Got No Secrets, her first collection of short stories which was published by Tightrope Books this May, in Canada, and Modjaji Books in South Africa. She currently lives in Halifax.

South African writers are fearless. Maybe it’s the crime, the harsh social realities that give their work its mimetic strength. Maybe the truth has just become impossible to ignore and the stories are aching to be told. Maybe it’s our complicated history – years of oppression, of literary and artistic censorship, a lack of exposure to provocative western art and pop culture for so many decades. Maybe it’s the rigidity of Apartheid – the militant notions of what it meant to be good, the God fearing and church going values.

Maybe we were just overdue for a major artistic and literary rebellion.

Maybe it’s the nature of the people – who are known for telling things the way they are, instead of cushioning them in the way they want things to be. In any case –I’ve never read literature more genuinely shocking, more compassionate, funny or deeply human than the literature written by South Africans. Don’t believe me? Let me give you four examples of some of my favourite recent South African novels.

In Kleinboer’s Kontrei (the title means country, but in English the title was translated as the Midnight Missionary) a man regularly visits prostitutes and has both safe and unsafe sex in Hillbrow, one of the poorest suburbs of Johannesburg (with the highest AIDS, drugs and murder rates in the country) while also living with his HIV positive girlfriend and her son. In Marlene Van Niekerk’s Triomf, a family living in Triomf, (a suburb formerly known as Sophiatown) are made up not only of parents who are not in fact married, but secretly brother and sister, and a son, the product of this union, who throughout the book, has sex with his mother. The blurb on the front cover teasingly describes it as: “South Africa as you’ve never seen it: a tale of incest and white trash.” In Toast Coetzer’s Naweek (Weekend) A rock star whose story begins with his death and works backwards, a rollicking adventure of sex and drugs, and you know that it’s not going to end well. In Karin Elof’s Stilletto, Elof, a former prostitute whose memoir details every act and emotional motivation.
It’s weighty stuff, but the truth always is.

In Triomf, Van Niekerk pushes our concepts of what is taboo to its limits- creating characters that are tragic, stuck in a routine of poverty, unemployment, illegal scams, drinking and shameful sexual encounters that they can’t escape because they simply can’t imagine living any other way.

The fact that the characters all ring true- that they read as three dimensional people is a triumph in and of itself. But beyond that, the fact that they elicit our deepest sympathies, that they are genuinely relatable, despite their actions, is astounding. Van Niekerk is a genius.

Kleinboer (whose pen name means little farmer, and whose real name is Fanie de Villiers) brilliantly juxtaposes verses from the Old Testament with explicit sex scenes and intimately personal details.

The protagonist, Sarel, is an Afrikaner who lives with his Zulu girlfriend in the predominantly black and rough neighbourhood of Hillbrow, and is obsessed with seeing as many prostitutes as possible.

It’s difficult to describe quite how deliciously wrong it feels to read graphic sex scenes in Afrikaans (the language, that when I was a kid signified bible stories, clear moral boundaries, and right wing politics) but let me just state that Kleinboer does it with aplomb – the perfect ratio of voyeurism and necessary honesty. It’s also ground breaking-the presentation of sex as unabashedly pleasurable, the anticipation and build up to an event that is enjoyed purely for its own sake is an act of rebellion itself given our context.

The same can be said for the joyful but matter of fact way that sex is handled in Coetzer’s novel and the liberated but detached way that it is often described in Elof’s. Coetzer’s Le Roux Basson is a rock star revelling in the drug and adoration hazed ecstasy of excess and success, tongue firmly in cheek. In Stiletto, Elof, a former stripper and porn magazine editor, details her journey from the sex industry to normalcy in a frank and brave manner.

Let’s not forget the complex truths here- if South Africa’s AIDS rates are incredibly high, they didn’t get there through abstinence, monogamous relationships, or safe practice in swinging single life. Kleinboer’s character Sarel’s love of sex and women, and Elof’s choice of profession are certainly not unique. Neither are his distaste for condoms, nor his panic the morning after. Le Roux’s love of partying, Elof’s moments of regret- these are more universal than South Africans, or indeed people, are usually comfortable acknowledging.

These books offer true subversion: they function as mirrors whose reflection shines so brightly they become impossible for their readers to ignore. They give us insights, compassion and understanding – the first steps towards social change. Go out and get them if you can- at least two have been excellently translated.

this article first appeared on nationalpost.com

“I am all for opening the can of worms and confronting the shadow.”

Danila Botha was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She later moved to Toronto, Canada, where she studied Creative Writing at York University, and Humber College for Writers. She volunteered with Na-me-res and Ve’ahavta, organizations benefiting the homeless, which inspired many of the stories in Got No Secrets, her first collection of short stories which was published by Tightrope Books this May, in Canada, and Modjaji Books in South Africa. She currently lives in Halifax.

Melinda Ferguson is brave. Not only did she survive years of full blown addiction to heroin and crack cocaine, she recovered enough to successfully become a journalist, and a writer who regularly shares her experiences in the hopes of helping others.

In her first book, Smacked, published in South Africa in 2005, she was unafraid to show addiction as it really was- a desperate, ugly struggle to get her next hit, an obsession that led to her abandoning everything that had once mattered to her- including her two (then young) sons.

The cycle of addiction and her subsequent recovery are described in depth, with absolutely no vanity or concern on her part for how she is portrayed. I truly believe that Smacked has, and will continue to save lives. Her second book, Hooked, was recently published by Penguin Books, in South Africa.

We had the chance to chat recently about addiction, honesty in writing, and the different reactions this has inspired.

DB: First of all, let’s talk about Smacked.

MF: Smacked was my first book, a memoir published in December 2005. It really captured the harrowing drug journey I went through between 1993 –1999. I literally gave everything up in my life: my family, my two boys, my home- everything- in search of a hit of smack (heroin) and crack. It’s a very hectic story, it goes right down into the darkness of addiction. It was very exposing. It pissed off a lot of people, especially within my own family.

DB: Which must have been massively at odds with how well it did. I can’t even imagine what that contrast must have been like.

MF: Yes, it was received very well by the book buying public. It went through 5 reprints and was a bestseller for many weeks. The reissue of Smacked will be in store on 1 July, (with my new publishers Penguin) and a new cover and a brand new chapter at the end, called Staying Stopped: Ten Steps I Took To Stay Clean and Sober.

DB: What do you think it is about it that resonated so strongly with people?

MF: I think the world is hungry for literature that talks honestly about people’s struggles and triumphs. My book is an everyman story, I was not someone people expected to turn into a junkie. I was a straight A student, a prefect (a hall monitor) at school , played netball and went to university.

I was just a person who went on some bad trips , made crap decisions and found myself homeless.

DB: Yes, I think this idea that addiction doesn’t discriminate, that it could happen to anyone, is a big part of it.

MF: Yes. Mine is a story of struggle and redemption of the self.

By way of sales figures, (Hooked is already climbing best seller charts) it seems many people are drawn to a story like mine.

We live in a highly addictive age and you don’t have to be a ‘Smack head’ to feel things like obsession and compulsion. I also realised not many books are written about the staying clean and sober process. This is one of the first ones that I know of, so maybe I am starting a whole new genre!

DB: Let’s talk about the new book, Hooked, which is the sequel to Smacked. It was just launched this month, right?

MF: Yes, and it was also written as a memoir. It’s subtitled “Secrets and Highs of a Sober Addict” and it really embraces the concept that addiction is much deeper than just using drugs and drinking. It is a state of mind, a psyche and it’s probably one of the most pervasive problems of our age along with global warming and HIV. The book traces three highly addictive Internet relationships that I embarked on as a kind of revenge on a long term boyfriend who cheated on me. They include a Facebook chat relationship with a meth head from Melbourne, Australia, a dodgy rock star from Troyeville ( a suburb of Johannesburg) and a slick, creepy critic from Cape Town . It explores the age of social networking which has literally re-colonised our world. It’s lighter than Smacked, funny, insightful and will hopefully leave the reader begging for more!

DB: Were you ever worried, as a writer who is so direct, and truthful, but is also so incredibly successful, that you would appear to be glamorizing drug use, or the recovery process? I get asked this too, by the way, because a lot of the stories and characters in Got No Secrets deal with drugs and addiction. I’m wondering if you have a good answer.

MF: I have sometimes worried about the effect I have on the reader in terms of possibly glamorizing addiction in a way, but I write about it so unglamorously, for example, in Smacked I open with a gang rape scene. In my experience, drug use is all about darkness and degradation. Many young people have read that book and sworn NEVER to touch drugs, so I think on the contrary it actually de-glamorizes drug abuse. I do worry though that sometimes when people see me these days, I seem so well and my life is going so brilliantly, that people might think it is easy to mess up your life, write a book and get back on track and live the fabulous life. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have really had to work hard and struggle incredibly to get where I am today. The more open we are about these things the more we will learn. I am all for opening the can of worms and confronting the shadow.

DB: Has writing been a big part of the healing process for you?

MF: Absolutely. I have grown enormously in self acceptance and forgiveness. I really think the truth will set you free and that we are only as sick as our secrets.

I have many letters from people telling me that both Smacked and more recently Hooked have changed the way they see addiction. Many addicts have been helped to get into recovery with my book, I get letters five years later on an almost daily level, testifying to this.

Writing my truth has definitely propelled me into an amazing space in my life.

this article first published here

“All of the aspects of my life inform my writing, including living in a colourful, vibrant country like South Africa”

Danila Botha was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She later moved to Toronto, Canada, where she studied Creative Writing at York University, and Humber College for Writers. She volunteered with Na-me-res and Ve’ahavta, organizations benefiting the homeless, which inspired many of the stories in Got No Secrets, her first collection of short stories which was published by Tightrope Books this May, in Canada, and Modjaji Books in South Africa. She currently lives in Halifax.

South African writing is impressively diverse in terms of style, subject matter, and even approach. A country with eleven national languages and cultures, it is unified in its author’s passion, humour, and in their desire to write about the truth as they perceive it. I had the chance to talk to two incredibly different, but equally notable poets, Johannesburg’s Michelle McGrane, and Cape Town’s Toast Coetzer, about writing styles, content, and what it means to be a South African writer.

Michelle McGrane is a poet who is exceptionally skilled at imbuing even the most mundane daily experiences with a sense of magic and immediacy. Her writing manages to be both classic and contemporary, reminiscent of the great imagist Amy Lowell, with a voice and sophistication that are all her own. Her latest book, The Suitable Girl, addresses grief, loss, anorexia, and death, with incredible beauty and grace. Her writing can be found here.

Your poetry is so beautiful – full of such strong, carefully realised and sensory images, and literary references. What is the writing and editing process like for you? How long does it usually take to finish a poem and a collection for you? What inspires you most?

MM: Usually, a poem begins with an idea, an image, or a first line that repeats itself in a distinctive voice. Once I have the opening line, I work on completing the rough draft. Typically, I produce several handwritten drafts before typing up the poem and continuing with the editing process on my computer.

I work slowly and tend to spend more time editing my poems than writing them. Often, a poem will take a week or two, sometimes it’ll take longer. And there are poems which seem to start out with promise only to be abandoned.

My new collection, The Suitable Girl, which will be published later this year, revolves largely around the lives of women – historical and contemporary – and consists of poems that I’ve written in the last two years.

The Suitable Girl is also being published in the UK. What was the process of finding a publisher there? Will we be able to get it in Canada?

MM: Pindrop, an independent press in the United Kingdom, invited me to submit a manuscript to them. Once it has been published, I think the collection will be available to purchase online through Amazon or through Pindrop’s website, so I hope it will find some Canadian readers. I have magical memories of months spent in Ontario as a child. I remember seeing snow for the first time in Tillsonburg.

On your blog, Peony Moon, you often champion the work of many other writers and poets. What makes a writer’s work of interest to you, or what is it about a work that makes you connect with it? And what is the writing community like in SA? Do you feel that there’s a genuine sense of community and camaraderie, and in what ways?

MM: Blogging has been such a positive experience; I’ve been introduced to some exciting work through Peony Moon. Everyone has stories to tell, and it’s a privilege to have the means to provide a small platform for poetry on the Internet.

One of the best things that has happened to South African writing in recent years is the establishment of Modjaji Books, an independent women’s press based in Cape Town with Colleen Higgs at its helm.

I agree, Modjaji and Colleen are amazing. Do you feel that being South African, or a writer who lives in South Africa informs your writing, and in what ways?

MM: All of the aspects of my life inform my writing, including living in a colourful, vibrant country like South Africa.

Toast Coetzer is a novelist who is known for his stream of conscious poetry that manages to be both heartbreakingly intimate and full of sharp, often funny social commentary. He has been the front man of a musical collective called the Buckfever Underground for the last twelve years- an improvisational band that he uses as a vehicle to perform his poetry. Together with his band, they are finally releasing a book of all of his collected poetry later this year. You can find their music, and his poetry, at www.thebuckfeverunderground.com

How did the book of poetry finally come together?

TC: The band and I do spoken word, with freeform backing. I’ve often been asked why I don’t have an anthology of poetry out, but I didn’t feel that it was needed as long as we kept producing albums. The band is the perfect outlet because it allows for experimentation – you can try out different texts in front of different audiences and see what resonates and what doesn’t. It’s like having 50 live editors in the room every time you play. Twelve years into the band is a good time to bring out a collection though, so I’m currently working on an edition for an independent publisher in South Africa. The plan is to release the book with a DVD to document the band side –interviews, some TV appearances, that sort of thing.

I’m fascinated by the logistics of the writing process for the band. How exactly does it work?

TC: The words aren’t matched to the music because I can’t read or write or play music so I just write whatever I feel like at the time. When we practice, we get to see which words stick to which pieces of music. We might create a synergy between text and music in the studio, or I might hear the band play a certain groove and then suddenly realise it matches something else in my pile of lyric sheets. We never play the same song twice, because we simply can’t. I write in front of the computer most of the time, but often words and phrases come to me while travelling, so I have an assortment of notes scribbled onto receipts and scrap paper that I keep. These then get fleshed out later.

Your song ‘Die Volk in in Die Kak’ (the people are in shit) was recorded twelve years ago, and yet people still talk about it. It opens with you saying, “I know exactly what’s wrong with us”- and goes on to critique, both openly and affectionately, Afrikaans and South African culture. I actually find myself quoting it when I get pissed off. What exactly inspired it, do you remember?

TC: It was written so long ago that I can’t remember exactly. It just seemed like an obvious phrase to use and once it had a theme the words came quickly and logically. South African celebrity tabloid magazines, like You and Huisgenoot were definitely an inspiration, and the South Africa I saw around me at that time.

Let’s talk about your travels. You write for Go Magazine, a travel magazine that sends you all over South Africa and the rest of the African continent. What are the most interesting places you’ve been to, or the most fascinating things you’ve seen?

TC: I get to travel a lot locally, in South Africa. What amazes me most is that nothing stays the same here. Roads sag and disappear into potholes, other rise sleek and smelling of fresh tar out of nowhere. Above all, it’s the South African people who keep surprising me. So much in the country is hectic, but you travel around and you hear people laugh, they celebrate, they love – it’s amazing. I get to venture further up into Africa a couple of times a year – we travel to lots of Southern African countries as well as Senegal, Mali, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia. I never really try to get into crazy situations when I travel, although when I was in Rwanda I did end up hitch-hiking on a jet fuel truck en route to the DRC.

My next book is a non-fiction travel book. It will be presented as a mega South African road trip, with hitch-hikers being the common thread, the marginalized people on foot.

How do you feel about journalists in South Africa comparing your writing to Hemingway? I’ve always thought you were more of an Afrikaans Kerouac myself.

TC: The Hemingway comparison is flattering, of course, but I’m not a patch on him. I read Kerouac when I was a student and it had a big impact on me, as I’m sure it had on millions of other readers. I certainly felt that the way I wrote lyrics for The Buckfever Underground was legitimized by the style I saw in ‘On the Road.’

this article first published by nationalpost.com

Danila Botha was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She later moved to Toronto, Canada, where she studied Creative Writing at York University, and Humber College for Writers. She volunteered with Na-me-res and Ve’ahavta, organizations benefiting the homeless, which inspired many of the stories in Got No Secrets, her first collection of short stories which was published by Tightrope Books this May, in Canada, and Modjaji Books in South Africa. She currently lives in Halifax.

I’d always admired, but been intimidated by poetry. Being able to write it always seemed like a kind of magic to me, like being able to do math, or juggle, or do gymnastics.

Rene Bohnen’s collection of poetry, Spoorsny (Tracking) changed my life. I was in Exclusive Books, (the South African equivalent of Chapters) in Johannesburg with my grandfather, and I stumbled onto it accidentally. We looked at it together, both read the first poem, and he insisted on buying it for me.

Published in 2000, it merged beauty and politics, personal observations with nature, raw emotions with uncomfortable truths. I had no idea that poetry could be that beautiful- so full of intricate images paired with sensitive observations about her family life, her daughters, her relationships- and South African social realities. I’ve since bought copies for so many friends, and the pages in my own version are curled and wrinkled from reading it in the bath. It’s entirely possible that I have at least half of the poems memorized. Though her book does not appear in translation yet, here is one of her poems, written in English, called Accident:

“So this is death;
this still, young boy
pale under a summer sky —
his wrist in my hand a silent toy
and his eyes indifferent to the light
of a slow afternoon drifting by.

See what I mean?

Ingrid Jonker, who has been referred to as South Africa’s Sylvia Plath, was a prolific and emotionally intense poet who also tragically died young. Her politically charged poem Die Kind (The Child) was read out loud by Nelson Mandela in his address at the opening of the country’s first democratic parliament in 1994.

Though her poetry has always been considered classic, and has always been well liked and respected, it recently got a huge resurgence when the singer Chris Chameleon put her writing into song form.

His album, 2005’s Ek Herhaal Jou (I repeat you) combined his soothing but emotionally acute vocals with her beautiful words, giving them new relevance and resonance with a younger generation.

Antjie Krog, a visionary whose career has been long and varied, has always successfully blended the personal with the political. Her poems contain a delightful mix of emotion and unique but universal experiences with a keen eye for critiquing South African politics. Since early in her career, she has openly critiqued Apartheid, been a proponent for women’s rights, and raised interesting questions about gender. In her poem land she describes South Africa as: “land that would not have me/land that never belonged to me/land that I love more fruitlessly than before”

Her scope has been so broad it’s astounding- as well as her poetry, she has written poetry for children, prose, drama for the stage, and non -fiction. My favourites are her first collection of poetry ever, Eerste Gedigte (first poems) where her talent for balancing subject matter with an usually melodic, read out loud style, shines through, 2000’s Down to My Last Skin, and 2005’s Body Bereft.

Aryan Kaganof has been described as a “one man cultural industry”. He is an artist, writer, indie publisher, and film maker. His latest film, SMS Sugarman, the first film made entirely using cell phones, he describes as: “a requiem for mothers everywhere forced into prostitution.” He is above all, a poet. He is incredibly adept at describing emotions and heartbreak, love, sex and attachment precisely and succinctly. In his collection Jou Ma Se Poems (Your mother’s poems) he writes with a lethal combination of sensitivity and frankness. In The Rau Student, he details an affair he had with an undergraduate who was many years his junior. He tenderly describes their morning routine, from how she looked, to what he she ate, to what he loved about her body. Then he delivers a startling truth, a sucker punch to the gut: “It wasn’t the best sex, it wasn’t the worst. She allowed me to do anything I wanted as long as she didn’t have to do anything herself.” In Raison D’Etre, he explains that while women he’s known are willing to do anything make the relationship work” he “only did the torturing because [he] could.” This deceptively simple statement about his experiences is a profound glimpse at a person who is not afraid to reveal his flaws, a person who not afraid to be honest with himself about his motives, despite the reaction this might receive. His latest book, that he is editing, a collection called Hauntology of Smoke and Ochre, a tribute to Ingrid Joker, features a variety of local writers, including myself. It can be purchased via his website.

Check them all out. They’ll change your life too.

Read more: http://arts.nationalpost.com/2010/07/09/danila-botha-poetry-to-change-your-life/#ixzz0tCJuCIBL

this article first published by nationalpost.com

Danila Botha will be reading from her new book “Got No Secrets” in Halifax, July 7th at 7 p.m., featuring musical guest Jenocide (ilovejenocide.com).

If you were stuck on the East Coast and unable to attend Danila’s Spring launch and Toronto readings, you now have the chance to hear her read from her incredible new book “Got No Secrets.”

“Got No Secrets” has been described as: “dark, relentless, and unflinching. Danila Botha’s is a bold new voice” -Julia Tausch

“These stories grab you by the throat and don’t let you go, bearing witness to lives in which self-destruction and hope are like symbionts, each feeding the other” -Nino Ricci

Come out and listen to Danila’s beautiful fiction, and support one of Canada’s newest literary voices.

Date:
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Time:
7:00pm – 11:00pm
Location:
The Company House, Halifax NS

danila botha: what inspires you the most?

aryan kaganof: my constantly depleted bank balance

db: are you ever afraid to write or say or create anything, and how do you push through it to get to the amazing end results?

ak: not

db: was it difficult, in terms of technology to make sms sugar man, get funding for it, and actually make it?

ak: the most difficult part was working with the so-called “producers”

db: if you could sum the movie up in one or two sentences what would you say?

ak: it’s a requiem for mothers everywhere forced into prostitution

db: which writers/film makers/poets are your inspiration?

ak: i like danila botha a lot because she is always searching

db: do you feel like being a south african artist especially is important, or informs a lot in your work, and obv why or why not?

ak: it definitely is, but i can’t say why

db: what is the most satisfying part of the creative process for you, and what will you do next?

ak: the most satisfying part is earning money out of it. my next project is a tribute to the poet ingrid jonker; it is a collection that i am editing. it will be called HAUNTOLOGY OF SMOKE AND OCHRE

The sun is shining, I can see glimpses of it when I look up at his blinds.

It casts thin white stripes across his sheet creased face. His clutching a corner of the blanket close to his cheek. He looks like a five year old, the blanket balled up in his fist.

Looking at his hands brings it all back.

I think of those thick fingers deep inside me, two at a time.

Suddenly I’m having a hard time breathing.

I keep rubbing my eyes. I wish I could look him, and this apartment, and think this is my life, and feel comfortable.

There are tequila bottles, some half empty, one broken on the counters and floor. The kitchen floor is covered with salt. It feels course and strange under my feet. I found one of my socks, purple with a blood stain on one toe from a blister I had from wearing heels, but I can’t find the other one. I find my tank top and my panties under my shoes, but I don’t know where my bra is.

There are mascara stains under my eyes, I see them when I look in the bathroom mirror.

There is a cut on my arm, just under my elbow.

I trace it with my finger.

He’s still asleep. The apartment is a studio, I can see him from the bathroom.

He has the sheet wrapped around him, tangled through his legs. His chest is bare, and it looks like he’s not wearing underwear.

It starts coming back, like vomit rising in the back of my throat. I met him at the bar. He’s Australian. He’s an artist. His name is Joe. He asked me to come to his house party when I got off work, and I came.

I knew what I was getting myself into and I told myself that it was ok. My first time didn’t really count.

I was almost twenty two. I needed to get over it. He was attractive. I needed to have sex.

His friends and I quietly and openly judged each other. He pulled me close to him around 1:30 am. He said we should dance. They were playing that song Frontier Psychiatrist by the Avalanches. The chorus, the words, ‘that boy needs therapy, over over’ while he kissed me. I pulled away, leaned against the open window, half considered jumping out.

He told me he always thought I was hot, hotter than the other girls there, he had to drink a lot to make a move, he said. He thought about it all the time, when he came into the bar, didn’t think he was good enough to try. I tried not to laugh, it was ridiculous. He was beautiful, blonde hair, tribal armband tattoo on perfect tanned biceps. He had no trouble getting women. It sounded like a line, but I wanted it to be true. You’re too suspicious of men, I told myself. He could be a nice guy. He leaned forward, brushed a piece of hair out of my face. You don’t know how hard it is, he said, to find someone you’re attracted to that you also find interesting. You’re an interesting girl, you know. I like your accent. I looked at him, stood there swaying from snorting too much coke, trying to act like I did it all the time, like I was cool.

He took me to his bedroom, kissing me, gently pushing me into the wall behind me. He

is a little rough when he takes off my clothes.

I bit my lip. I like him, I told myself, over and over. I know him, enough anyway. I wanted this.

It started to feel good. I found myself moaning, not wanting it to be over. I felt free for the first time in a long time. I closed my eyes, heart pounding in my ears, blood pumping below my waist, tears falling that I didn’t notice until after. He didn’t notice at all, or didn’t act like he did. That was intense, was all he said when we were finished.

His apartment is on the twelfth floor, the top floor of the building. He has a balcony that’s on the roof, that had space for everyone. He took me downstairs, to the bedroom, closed the door. I didn’t know how to act so I improvised. He asked me to stay the night. I didn’t have enough money to take a cab so I did. This morning, I’ll walk then take the streetcar home.

I find my pants on the floor near foot of the bed, find my jacket on the pile near the door, put my shoes on even though I only have one sock.

He doesn’t wake up as I close the door and a part of me feels relieved. In the living room, there is a massive canvas that all his guests were encouraged to draw on all night. I grab a black marker and write the word vryheid in the corner in capital letters. Freedom. Then underneath it, in smaller letters, I write dankie vir alles. Thanks for everything. I don’t need to sign it.

I find myself smiling as the sun hits my face when I step outside, onto the street.

I didn’t leave him because it hurt, because I was scared he’d do it again, or because I couldn’t defend myself against him.

I didn’t do it because of the anger that twisted his features, that burned in his retinas, that shot with little balls of spit from his mouth, that bent his fingers into a fist when he punched my face.

I didn’t do it because in that moment he didn’t seem human, or because in that moment or the ones leading up to it, he was deaf to anything I said, snarling, jumping down my throat.

I didn’t fight back, because I wanted him to hurt me. I wanted it to be over.

That was the easy part, does that make sense?

I wanted him to hurt me, to do his worst, so that we were both sure it was over. Because for a few weeks, that’s what I’d known without a shadow of a doubt.

I didn’t love him anymore. I wasn’t sure I ever had.

I was just waiting, waiting for the right time to get out.

Waiting for the right moment to re evaluate my life. Trying to figure out what my next move should be, where I should go.

It wasn’t a question of if, but when. Does that sound cold? I know I cared about him, of course. But I’d been slowly detaching for weeks, slowly getting my life back. I knew what he was capable of. He’d hit me before, and I tried, tried so hard to say it was ok, to understand it.

For the first time in a long time the future looked too wide open, too full of possibility.

I didn’t know what to do so for a month I did nothing.

I moved in to a backpackers hostel at Spadina and King to get away from him. I didn’t have a lot of stuff- just clothes and cds, a few books, my camera, canvas, art supplies. I never had any furniture.

I took sleeping pills at night to help me fall asleep.

I used an internet cafe nearby to contact friends. I went to work, but I changed my shift hours so he couldn’t find me. I went for walks by myself, or with Anika, the girl I work with. If we got off work at a decent hour, we’d take the streetcar east on Queen and go for walks down by Cherry Beach.

We make jokes about it- about the water you can’t actually swim in, the lack of waves, the e coli, the tons of sand the bulldozers must have brought in to make it look like a real beach.

It’s beautiful though. We’d take our shoes off, sink our feet into the sand, listen to the water softly hit the rocks, the seagulls cawing.

It’s the closest thing to nature, to the beaches near our hometowns that we can get here. It’s both of our favourite places in this city.

She’d bring vodka or whiskey in a metal flask. She taught me how to drink the hard stuff.

It turns out that she’s been dating our boss, Dez, for almost a year. It was kind of a secret for a long time, then they broke up but now they’re thinking of getting back together.

It’s amazing how little you know sometimes about people you see every day.

Do you trust him, I asked her one night. She looked down at her hands. I guess I have to, she said.

No, but I mean, in your heart, do you really believe he’ll never cheat on you?

Her eyes were focused on the water. Honestly? I don’t know. I want to believe that I can trust him. I really do.

I mean, she looked at me- you remember what he was like when we first started working there? All the girls at work he’d hook up with? I nodded. Yeah, I said, of course. Everyone knew about that. I think girls would come to the bar just try to sleep with him. There were so many of them, and some of them were young, younger than us for sure.

I thought about it for a second. But then he just kind of stopped, I said.

Right, she interrupted, and smiled. Since we got really involved all those months ago.

That, or he got more discreet about it, I said. You have to admit that it’s possible.

I mean, she paused. Of course. Of course it’s possible. She sighed.

I didn’t want to hurt her. But we were friends now. I wanted to protect her. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t being deceived.

It’d be hard for anyone to break a pattern of that many years, I said. I mean, I’m sure he didn’t just start doing that a year ago. I hate to say it, An. He probably did it to other women too.

Her grey eyes looked soft and watery.

I wish I could explain it to you, or even to myself in a way that made sense. It just feels like one of those things I have to do. It’s a risk I have to take. There’s something I feel for him that’s special. Something I’ve never felt before. I went through this terrible thing, this attack that took me out of myself for so long. I was so afraid of everything, especially of guys. Something in my gut told me it was ok to trust him. So I did. That has to count for something right? There’s something unique about the way we connect, she said. There’s something comfortable about it, I can talk to him in a way I’ve never been able to talk to anyone else. I can be myself, and it’s ok.

Do you know what I mean, she asked me. I did, but I didn’t say anything.

She continued. It’s worth it to hope against hope sometimes, you know? If I’m right, if he’s trustworthy, he could be the love of my life. If I’m wrong, and he cheats on me, at least I’ll know I tried. I really love him, Nicki- I have to try.

I held her hands as they shook. She was so brave.

I mean, I’ll only know if I survive jumping off the cliff if I actually jump, right? And that’s the thing Nicki, that’s the thing I realized after all this time apart. Maybe I will get hurt, but I’m not going to die.

Maybe it won’t work out, but at least I won’t have missed out on anything. I’m done living my life in fear of everything bad. It doesn’t protect you. It just stops you from living.

I told her how much I admired her.

She laughed. You could do it, too, she said. I hadn’t told her about Nir yet, and I didn’t want to until I spoke to him. When I got home that night I used the internet cafe to email him.

I didn’t have a subject line, and just wrote one line in the body. Ani Mitgaga’at eilecha. I wrote. I miss you. He wrote back two hours later, just one line.

Gam Ani, it said. Me too.