ABSTRACT

I feel like a target at the tips of the

paparazzi waiting to be pinned
down. Struggling to breathe I find
myself suffocating. I am empty, yet
this emptiness carries a burden of
heaviness. I have lost a part of me
that I never think can be brought
I DON’T NEED back. I am beyond broken, and
this is my story.

MENDING. I NEED TO
QUIETEN MY
DEMONS
Taken from a black girls’ suicide note
Londiwe Mhlongo
IG: Sundai_blues
 Contents
PROLOGUE .................................................................................................................... 3
INTRODUCTION: ............................................................................................................ 4
PART 1:........................................................................................................................... 5
What's broken? ............................................................................................................ 5
A letter to my mother ................................................................................................ 7
PART 2............................................................................................................................ 8
Abject ........................................................................................................................... 8
A letter to the thief .................................................................................................... 8
Hopelessness cannot be spelt without HOPE ............................................................. 9
To my brother or sister that had something stolen from them that cannot be
replaced ................................................................................................................... 9
Paranoia .................................................................................................................... 10
PART 3:......................................................................................................................... 11
She died with a part of me in her ............................................................................... 11
Teach me how to love ............................................................................................ 11
A letter to someone special who lost their special someone .................................. 13
Only the broken ............................................................................................................. 12
A letter to a broken bird ............................................................................................. 12
Depression .................................................................................................................... 14
My Mental illness ....................................................................................................... 15
Dear black people .................................................................................................. 15
I am not good enough ................................................................................................ 16
To those who live a constant battle between life and death ................................... 16

pg. 1
I may not be able to choose when are where I was born but I get to choose where and
when I die.

The beginning of the end.

Please note that this book won’t make sense unless your broken because then you will
understand that putting the pieces together isn’t easy and sometimes can be mixed up,
not making any sense.
 PROLOGUE
Oppressed by my depression
Lord oppress this depression before it kills me.
I have a confession that I was not seeking for attention
But was searching for an unknown perfection
Until it became an addiction.
In addition, I am drowning in a mansion of emotions.
Lord these demons are killing my devotion.

White sheets turned red

Short sleeves become long
People try scanning my engraved barcode of happiness- Declined

I hope I find a blessing

Or a therapy session
Or just go to heaven
Or just a haven!



I am a farmer, I plant fake seeds and I water them each day waiting impatiently for them
to blossom. I am a voiceless poet with no ink. Completely unheard. I am a dead soul
dressed in body. I am the tears that will never dry up.

I am pain, an abortion of love, peace and happiness. I am nothing.

I am drowning. I am dying. I am at war.

I beg not for your sympathy

I just want you to understand my pain

And reason with my action.

Welcome.

pg. 3
 INTRODUCTION:

I do not write for the faint hearted, critics nor the beautifiers but I write for the broken
and those who understand the truths of a black girl and how her bare thoughts remind
her of her Temple. Her brown old wooden doors of innocence those that once were of
innocence and peace, opened and entered-into like a Temple that she was and left
objectified like God never lived inside of her.
I write for the black boy who can never talk because he must be man enough, strong
enough and tough enough as if he doesn’t hurt. I write especially for the man who is an
empty vessel making the most noise yet is not heard because indoda kayikhali1.
I write for the women who bare the pain of their loved ones. Those who have been
countlessly hurt and broken but have never given up because uyibhokodo 2. The women
who have raised children alone, women who have been abused and used but especially
the woman who is weak and can’t strike anymore.
I write for the broken beyond repair because to them pain has become immune making
them numb to any possible emotions, making them feel a sort of hatred for their life
because every breathe is a struggle and every second is a war between their conscious
and their demons.
I write for those who just want to die, because no-one understands them…
They don’t even understand themselves.
It's like...
I'm numb...
All I see is blood drops.
I'm broken, and I need to be mended
But how do you fix something when you don't know what's broken?

1
Men don’t cry
2
Rock

pg. 4
 PART 1:
What's broken?

I become very sorrowful to the realization that I can't tell where it hurts.
Where does this pain reside from?

What is inner peace?

This is my beginning to my end.

I don't know what peace is. I have heard the pastor preach of it countless of times even
casting it unto my life with the exact words; “may peace be with you”, but I have never
really had it or felt it (that’s if it is even tangible).
I say I don't know it because as-long-as I remember my soul has never been in silence,
it is always in constant war with something. Then home which has always been another
war on its own; mom always shouting, dad sick, my little sister crying over something,
my bigger sister being perfectly good at everything, then there is me, the villain who is
never understood yet forever judged.

I have never been at peace with myself since I was born as I have never forgiven myself
for many things and therefore, have never been able to forgive others. For a long time in
my life I have blamed myself for almost everything but have never gone back to make
peace with it in my heart in-order to accept it... How do I even make peace? Do I just
say it that I've made peace with something hence I become at peace…?
Never mind that...
Let’s start with not having a solid relationship with my mother growing up or let me say,
feeling like I never had a mother, when almost every other girl my age had some kind of
relationship with their mothers, and there I was, clueless about what being a daughter to
a mother was about, this lead to internal searches of the problem that haunt me still
because I have always believed that I was to blame for the unrequited love, obviously I
was doing something wrong to push her away somehow because even with not growing
up with her when I did start staying with her I felt a slight disconnection as sometimes I
would feel as though she is not trying hard enough, or didn’t even love me at all, I say
this because rather than being a mother to me I felt she was a Mam’fundisi3. But
growing gave me wisdom and today I understand but I still lost years with my mother
especially when I needed her the most.

3
Pastors wife

pg. 5
But honestly things will never really be perfect between us because I know not how a daughter
is to a mother nor a mother to a daughter. But as Madea once said; “parents are not God”,
today I understand what that means…

pg. 6
 A letter to my mother
The broken don't have enough love to give out for theirs is slowly running out...

I do a lot of blaming in my life, one of the people that I blame ‘recklessly’ in my life is my
mother, yet I feel she has a story of her own. A story that left her broken but she dares
not to say. She’ll rather always be the one holding people up, but I think she is tired and
weak, and needs to be held up by someone.

Dear mama:
I am sorely sorry that this world has been so cruel to you. I know that you haven’t gotten
over your mothers departure which I REALLY UNDERSTAND, I understand what you
are going through because I feel/felt the same way with Gogo4 - even at this very
moment thinking of her brings tears to my eyes, but the only difference is that you never
wanted to deal with the pain and neither do you want to now so you keep pushing the
pain down because you are afraid of being weak because you are ever so used to being
the strong one holding people up therefore you feel obliged to be strong.
You must be angry at the world that your mother never got to see your wedding or bring
up your children and give you Grown-up advice for your problems that you face. I do not
take what you are going through likely because I am there now, I know the pain.
Then when things couldn’t get any worse for you, your husband gets a stroke making
you the bread winner and the head of the family which are both not small roles to take
upon especially if you yourself need people to be there for you now you, alone, have- to
be there for a whole family whilst being strong for everyone else. I know sometimes
there are times we should be starving but you are forever so strong even when your
eyes almost give up on the tears they hold up. I have been quite a heavy burden upon
you and I know you try your best and have only been hard on me because you only
want the best for me and you are trying to make me strong for the world that is not soft
on anyone. I know you love me and care although sometimes it’s hard to believe, yet I
know every mother loves their children yet sometimes we are just too blind to see it and
we become selfish and don’t see the hard work you go through to make us as happy as
possible. Mama I love you and I pray your wounds heal and your soul mends. I know
you are strong but the strong also get weak and no-one ever said that the journey will
be easy, but YOU did say that God never gives us burdens we cannot carry, I think
maybe God forgot to say Sometimes We Will Need Help In Carrying These Burdens.
I appreciate you more because I understand how strong you are, growing helped me
understand that you just need mending.
Love Lolozana kamama

4
Grandma

pg. 7
 PART 2
Abject

Being molested at the age of 5/6 by a man who lived under my dad’s roof is another
hurricane evoking part of my life because I did not understand at my age what was
going on. Having to grow up and having to understand what happened resulted in
internal and external hatred for my body for being tainted and hating God even more for
what happened and not giving me reason or at least a pillar to hold on to through the
process of understanding what happened. I hated my mother for not being around. I just
don’t understand why the world seems to hate me so much.


A letter to the thief

People think it’s just innocence that is seized from you when you are raped.
Whether you’re male or female your pride, life, soul, cleanliness is taken away
from you with the chance to a normal life and internal peace.
Dear rapist:
You have stripped me off my dignity and left me with insecurities and an unclean body. I
bath twice in the mornings and twice that in a day trying to remove you from me, yet I
still smell you and still feel the dirt you left on me even today crawling all over my body
like parasites that aim to suck up all my innocence. It feels as though this happened
yesterday. The pain I feel has caused a lot of hate accumulating inside of me, and funny
enough it’s hard to forgive you just like it is to forget. You have changed me. From the
way I think, feel and act. I hope you are happy that you have broken a little girl for a
temporary sensation. Since everything happens for a reason I still try search for the
reason young girls and boys get raped.

pg. 8
 Hopelessness cannot be spelt without HOPE

hen my father’s stroke that never sat well with me. I mean this guy was my

T everything and, in a flash, he didn't even remember me, to him being useless and
I on the other hand not giving myself enough time to accept what has happened
in the name of 'God' and blessing... I like how God works he just keeps hurting me
without showing any remorse and I must keep praying and loving him because
"something better is coming", kunini bakithi5?
What is peace when your heart aches from being hurt countless of times by people I
loved or still terribly love because I'm a fool. Am I a fool if I still hopelessly search for
love because it's something that is always just snatched away from me. Either they walk
all over me with it or they just throw it back in my face.
When I thought things couldn't get better we had a house robbery few years later, and
to me it wasn't much about what they took, yet I must admit that there is something that
they took that has my heart heavy. That night those men took something that my mother
cannot buy back, or they themselves cannot return because they took away my dad’s
power as a father in front of his kids. They took his manhood and left me with memories
of my dad being useless in front of me. To me it felt like the Gods were forcing it down
my throat that he had a stroke. Now, I’m left with the trauma that leaves me paranoid.


To my brother or sister that had something stolen from them that cannot be
replaced

Dear sister/brother
They have stolen from us some things that they cannot bring back. They have scarred
us and taken away our mouth piece. They told us we are not good enough and we
believed them even after their deceptiveness. So, we sit and feel sorry for ourselves
waiting for the world to shelter us with love not knowing that the world owes us nothing.
I’m sorry that the person who stole something from you made you feel the type of
worthless that no therapist could cure.
The world owes us nothing therefore it is up to us to change our own lives although we
don’t even know how to do that, it might be worth the try.

5
How long has it been?

pg. 9
 Paranoia
Let me tell you about Paranoia...
It's hearing things
It's seeing things, something like schizophrenia but worse
Deep hallucinations.
It's jumping at every screech
It's not being able to sleep because every unknown sound is a suspect and every
unexpected movement is a threat
It's being afraid of living and being a coward of the life after
Paranoia is me right now
It's slowly going crazy with full realization of what's going on but not being able to do
something about it
It's living in constant fear
It's wanting to die
It's wanting the dark yet afraid of what it carries
It's being numb to any possible emotion
Paranoia is when you're in pain and wanting to add pain to eliminate this pain.
It's being alive but showing no signs of living.
Paranoia is making the figurative literal because to you all is real;
It's the stabs of life that make your body pain personifying life to an actual person
A person that Cleary despises your existence for you threaten him.
It's crying but having no tears on your face
It's drowning on land and being alone in a room full of people
It's being lost in a self-created maze that doesn't even exist.

pg. 10
 PART 3:
She died with a part of me in her

Anna Nkosazana Mhlongo

Anna Nkosazana Mhlongo died on the year 2016.
My grandmother was more like my mother. She raised me until I was 13 years old and I
had to move to the city of Johannesburg to live with my mother. She was the best thing
after bread and always made me happy.
xxx
My biggest strike of all was my Grandmothers death. She was sick and all and I wanted
her to be at peace, but the main problem is I don't think I was ready to be alone.
Grandma was somewhat like my diary, she understood me and never for a day would
she judge me, and she always knew how to talk to me, it's like she knew how to make
grey brighter and black lighter then she just left… and it struck me right then when her
box was lowered 6 feet under, that I am now officially alone, no dad no grandma and of
course Sino is here but didn't she also, just lose a grandmother? Her gone isn't the
problem, the problem is me not being used to being alone especially when the person
who leaves, leaves with a part of you.


Teach me how to love

Teach me how to love for I seem to have forgotten

What is love other than affection and an infection to the heart?

Teach me how to love before it’s too late and my heart is fragile as glass

What is love?

Does it grow like a seed?

And is it nice as weed?

Or is it just a dirty deed?

Teach me how to love

Although love is nothing but delayed pain

pg. 11
 Only the broken
A letter to a broken bird

Unfortunately, in the world of the broken time doesn’t heal all wounds but it makes them
deeper. God doesn’t seem to be there because to us life is just a huge disaster waiting
to occur. Therapy is a waste of money and time. Peace and happiness is a search to
happen for eternity. Love doesn’t exist, and pain is only pain unless you feel it
physically. To us, to find that peace you have-to go to your final resting place, and no, it
won’t be okay, stop telling me to be strong when I’m on my knees falling and stop telling
me that I create my own happiness because then wouldn’t the whole world be happy?
Depression is real, whether you are black or white, rich or poor. And parents stop telling
me I need prayers because I’m tired. I’m tired of being tired and tired of being sad so I’m
just tired. Parent, family, friends the broken just need love and support although they
don’t believe it, give them hope it does make a difference and maybe other things will
change too. Help them fight the war instead of adding to it or denying it ever existence
because you don’t understand. And lastly try to understand them rather than thinking
you already do; you will be surprised and what you don’t know about a person.

Dear broken bird

A poem I had just read recently made me realize that when winter comes life doesn’t
stop breathing and neither should we because season change is temporary so the cold
won’t last for long and the flu will soon be gone. See thing is life is like a game, the
higher you get with your levels the harder it gets and the more obstacles you will have
to cross first before getting to the end. When you downloaded the game, no one said it
will be easy, but they did say it will be an adventure so seize the moment and see the
beauty of playing rather than of losing once or twice.

pg. 12
 A letter to someone special who lost their special someone

Dear loved one

It’s not going to be okay, but you can and will be okay
Love is delayed pain, yet no-one ever prepares themselves for the pain and to yet be
lonely one day. It’s a sad joke really, one day you are jubilant and happy with your loved
one and next moment you are in great sadness because they are gone. They are gone,
and they will NEVER return, your pillars have fallen… and you break even more yet not
because you never got to say goodbye because no goodbye will be good enough but
because this person has left with a part of you-
It’s going to be okay. It won’t- that is why in my letter I urge you not think it should be
because “It’s okay not to be okay”. I will not tell you to stop crying and to be tough, but I
will tell you to cry the chance you get, I will tell you to be weak and to be held because
trying to be strong when you’re not, kills you even more. Be sad let it all out and do not
rush your healing process.
You’re alone. We’re never alone. We always have someone who loves and cares for us
more than we can imagine they just don’t know what to do. They probably want to talk
to you but don’t know where to start and they want you to open-up, but you always shy
away and conceal. Suicide is NEVER the answer. I repeat, SUICIDE IS NEVER THE
ANSWER. You might end your pain, but you start another cycle of pain to those who
dearly and sorely love you and to those who believed they could have done something.
Spiritually I know God is always there yet sometimes it’s hard to believe he even cares
about me. It’s very hard to believe you are loved when you are broken. It’s hard
because my prayers are the only unanswered ones. Maybe I’m not praying hard enough
or the right way or it’s my initial problem- peace. For as much as I love God I am still
angry at him for things that happened and still happen. So broken soul I pray you let go
of everything and I pray you learn to forgive yourself and your spiritual guide for
whatever you blame yourself and Them for.

pg. 13
 Depression

Sitting in this place I call home I realize the fireplace releases everything but warmth,

It's the coldness of hell, dead memories and faded feelings of love. I am in a mortuary
and I can't help but realize this place is furnished with chairs that cannot support me, a
counter that I cannot count on, a bed that I cannot rely on and never turning tables.

Sitting here makes me urge for a sense of belonging. I am lost, I try to find peace in my
sleep as I am haunted by unknown feelings residing from the core of this mortuary. The
beautiful golden jars that I drink from are filled with hate and the golden plates I eat from
are never fore filling.

I am in a room filled with family, yet it doesn't feel like home, I guess I've always been
alone. Nothing hurts more than feeling at home within a heart that doesn't belong to
you- Pathetic.

Longing for happiness I realize the hurt don't deserve it for their souls are tainted and
their hearts leak from hurt.

Praying for peace I prophesy that the empty will always be in destruction as their souls
echo their scars and rebuke peace.

I am alone, yet with people I guess the ones who have shouldn't, because the blind
sees all and the deaf hear all but you with vision didn't see this coming.

Note: If you don't feel you belong you are at the wrong place. You are not home!

pg. 14
 My Mental illness

When my mother saw my scars

She said it was Satanism
But what she didn’t know was that my scars
Are my suicide letters written all over my arms.

When my sister saw my scars

She laughed and said; ‘oh you’re following the trend”
But what she didn’t know was that my prayer
Before I slept every night was a prayer begging God
Not to wake me up in the morning.

When my father saw my scars

He thought he could see me
But what he didn’t know was that
I am colorless and dead inside

Asthmatic, air keeps seeping in even though I don’t want to breathe



Dear black people

Mental illness has nothing to do with attention seeking, craziness, witchcraft or some
evil spirits that comes over people. Don’t take me to church when I’m crying for help and
begging for your love and support because the demons in my head are not those from
Satan but from you- society. Dear parent, depression is real and affects more than just
our social life but school life, work life, spiritual life and life in general.
“Depression is like a thousand pounds of weight, weighing you down in a pool of water,
so no matter how bad you neck hurts you have got to keep your head up to survive.”
(unkown)

pg. 15
 I am not good enough

Instead of “it’s going to be okay” echoing in my head

“you are not good enough” echoes in my head
I cannot silence it
I try to convince myself
Yet the voice in my head seems to echo louder
“You are not good enough!”
I try to build myself but there is always something to knock me down

It’s like slowly dying and not being able to stop it

And hating yourself for it
A constant, never ending cycle of guilt shame and hate
And just never being good enough for yourself

It’s not having control

It’s not trusting enough
Pure exhaustion
Complete emptiness
Crippling fear
Crying, lot and lots of crying
Writers note:
I’ve never felt worthy of anything in my life because I was always told and reminded how
useless I was until I actually started believing that I was worthless and nothing more
than a waste of life. I think it is worse when words of destruction come from someone
you expect words of comfort and construction from. There is no greater disappointment
than being seen as nothing by someone who you see as something because then you
become your greatest failure in life. The tongue is yet the sharpest object I know of after
a razor therefore I warn anyone who uses it and ask them to use it delicately because
you may be killing someone, and you might not even know it. I could be too late, maybe
you already are…

pg. 16
 I hate life
I hate my life for I don’t understand why I had to be conceived in a world scary and dirty
like this one. I hate the grass for being green and they sky for being blue. I hate the
world for being unwelcoming and the universe for being unkind. I hate life because for
me it’s about living in constant pretense.


If I do commit suicide I just want you to understand my pain and for you to call me not a
coward or a selfish being because when I was alive you didn’t care, neither did you see
this coming.

I want you to read this again and realize how I make excuses for those who hurt me and
for you to extensively critic how I contradict my own self through my motivations that
clearly couldn’t motive me (or did they?).
We are all broken but some of us are beyond repair. My heart begs my brain not to think
because I’ve run out of positivity.
I love all who loved me and those who don’t. I still try to search for a reason(s) to
appreciate those who hurt me even when I opened-up to them.
What I did learn though is that Depression is like the game Dominos and we are the
pieces and when one person gets affected and not helped, before you know it most
domino the pieces are down and affected. In simple words depression is a chain
reaction.

I am always on a run
Not because I want to keep fit or because I want to be strong
But because it is the only thing I am good at
I am a coward
I am afraid to face reality,
So I turn a blind eye
I wear a mask
I dance at my own funeral
Because I believed that when I jumped off that bridge
I was going to be an angel and fly
Instead I went straight down
pg. 17
 To those who live a constant battle between life and death

To those who live a constant battle between life and death,

I hear you.
I see your cries through your cuts,
I hear you screams in your silence.
I HEAR YOU…
And
I understand you because

WE DON’T NEED MENDING. WE JUST NEED TO

QUIETEN DOWN OUR DEMONS.

pg. 18
 I’m just trying to stay alive, but it isn’t easy

I wish it were easy to talk to people, tell people how I’m actually doing
I’m good… That is all I’ll say until I’ve run out of air and my lungs are tired and weak
I’m good…
I’m good… That is what you’ll always know
I’m good.
I wish it were easy as they say it is to be happy
I can’t quieten down my demons, how am I to control them?
I’ll be fine.
I’m fine…
I’ll be better off gone, yet you wouldn’t understand
My happiness lies on broken grounds,
Soon it’s to go like it never existed
It probably never did…

Remember I’m paranoid…

That’s why this book barely makes sense

It might never be okay, that’s why I…

pg. 19
xx/xx/2019
Dear God
If you are out there I ask for peace. I won’t do any blaming today because I’m at my maximum
sadness where blaming anyone won’t change anything neither will it make me feel any better. I just
want to die really. I’ve tried my best at being my best in being the perfect daughter, sister, friend but I
have failed. I have nothing to say. I just want to cry really…

Contact Details:

pg. 20
 Facebook : Londiwe Nkomozikababaziphelele Mhlongo

Twitter : @Londii_Mhlongo

Instagram : Sunda_Blues

Email : Lanzeeymhlongo@gmail.com

pg. 21
pg. 22