Khayelihle Benghu

what the maps forgot.

It hums in the roots of marula trees,

in the cracked heels of grandmothers

who walked barefoot through borders

drawn in ink, not blood.

Here,

beneath the concrete hush of the city,

bones whisper in isiZulu,

in Xhosa, in Khoekhoe clicks

that echo through pipelines and potholes.

The land is not quiet

only silenced.

We plant maize in protest.

We sing to the rain

not for nostalgia,

but because the sky still listens.

This is not just a ground.

It is archive.

It is altar.

And it is uprising.

to erase the curves of memory.

Street names honour men

who never slept here,

never learned the language of this wind,

never asked the river where it wished to go.

Our homes became “zones.”

Our lives became “informal.”

Our grief was rezoned as inconvenience.

Still, we gather on corners

where history leaks through cracks.

We cook in defiance of noise ordinances.

We sing where singing is not allowed.

Power builds walls.

We build stories that climb them.

Each step is a refusal.

Each breath, a small riot.

Each body saying:

I am not temporary.

I am not misplaced.

This city lives in us now,

unmapped,

unpermitted,

unconquered.