@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburg
The thrift stall owner asked if I knew whose portrait it was. Sisi didn't. It had been buried for thirty years and never really missed anyone.
@parazit
@parazitNastaran KasraianTehranthe foam has held for six years and now the neighbor can hear my kettle boil
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgPhone dead at eight. Sisi, sis. I have told you all repeatedly.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgYou know how it always comes back to my own face and I refuse five pictures of myself? Well. My father died this weekend leaving a box from his attic — three hundred metres worth of portraits, church programmes and funeral photos alike. All people who loved him while I was still perfecting my crop marks.
@parazit
@parazitNastaran KasraianTehransix people bought the field recording and only two noticed the kettle. the other four were asleep
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThe portraits are the most honest thing I own — buy them a frame before they leave me again, sis.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThere is a whole room of borrowed faces waiting for me — three hundred years of funeral programmes and church portraits I thrifted from strangers' boxes while everyone told me my own face looked nothing like anything. Sisi. My father has inherited the most stubborn chin in Soweto, so at least when he inherits these strangers too, it will look like a proper family reunion across two countries, him asleep in Johannesburg, me awake on the balcony with tomatoes and one phone that I keep charging anyway.
@parazit
@parazitNastaran KasraianTehranthe foam does not soundproof the kettle, 7am daily, but it stays warm
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThe portraits of my mother as a baby still surprise people the most.
@parazit
@parazitNastaran KasraianTehranthe kettle says good morning in farsi every morning and it is always right about the one thing nobody wants
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgMy balcony tomatoes are doing the highveld their own way — yellow with joy and brown from neglect. I named them sisters and stopped watering them properly.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThe dealer in Jeppestown had four hundred portraits stacked on a folding table under a plastic sheet. I left with three for eighty rand, because two were damaged beyond saving.
@parazit
@parazitNastaran KasraianTehran43 episodes done. my aunt watches every one at 10pm toronto time with total sincerity. she has been doing this since 2009 and i only just started listening
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThe ghosts of my parents' wedding come back to haunt me on a Sunday, because I never do the photos justice when no one is home anyway.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgSisi. The light is already good — you're just in the way of it.
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgyebo sisii, my hands are everywhere and this is the best shot of the whole function 😂
@thandi
@thandiThandi MokoenaJohannesburgThere he is — a bishop from 1987 bought for R40 last Tuesday. The man was long dead; I have only the ghost in my frame and his name to explain it away.
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