Poetry by Nkateko Masinga

         Rich Mason CC



​​heroin(e)
 
press backspace once
& hello turns to hell
 
even lover without the l
spells over
 
my friend. my beloved.
when you said heroin(e),
i thought you needed me.  
not the drug.
 
either way, i wasn’t there
 
press backspace once &
heroine turns to heroin
 
click view history once
and you turn to drugs
i, to soft rock and boys,
both of us too far gone.
 
press the space bar once
and beloved becomes
be loved. oh, be loved.
 
please be loved,
even if it’s not
by me. rest easy.
(assuage my guilt)
 
dial 911 &
nobody saves
either of us
 
i thought we were taking it together,
this life trip. it’s no fun without you.
 
i have been jaywalking
since you walked away
 
i will be (guilt)-tripping
until i join you up there




fourteen lines make a sonnet or an overdose
 
what happened?
 
i rehearsed the end,
took in my lines
of pow(d)er & told
them how i
 
found her.
or didn’t.
 
who was there when she died?
 
a single line can end a life.
 
a couple(t) ends a sonnet.
 
it always goes this way:
 
two liars. one alive.
the other hovering,
 
desperate to come clean.

​

Nkateko Masinga is a South African poet and 2019 Fellow of the Ebedi International Writers Residency. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2018 and her work has received support from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg and the Swiss Arts Council. Her written work has appeared in Brittle Paper, Kalahari Review, U.S journal Illuminations, UK pamphlet pressPyramid Editions, the University of Edinburgh’s Dangerous Women Project, and elsewhere. She is the Contributing Interviewer for Poetry at Africa In Dialogue, an online interview magazine that archives creative and critical insights with Africa’s leading storytellers.

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