“To find your own voice is to walk a winding path—
each step shedding the echoes of others,
each breath uncovering the sound of your becoming.”
anon
The journey to self-discovery rarely begins with certainty. It starts with a question – a whisper from within that asks who we truly are beneath the noise, the roles, and the stories told about us. On this path, we do not find ourselves by chance, but through courage: the courage to listen inward, to stand in silence, and to speak when the soul insists.
From 15 to 19 September, Inclusive and Affirming Ministries (IAM) hosted the third cohort of the Journey of Hope (JOH) program, creating a space for participants to find the words to (re)claim and (re)define their journeys. The process was led by Zizipho Bam, award-winning poet and co-founder of Slam City. Titled “Poetry as a Sensory Experience,” the session invited participants to draw on their senses—smell, sound, texture, and sight—to capture the memories, thoughts, and feelings that surfaced through the creative process. The journey inward proved to be the longest mile; as masks dissolved, participants wrote and shared from places of raw honesty—celebrating resilience, naming their pain, and weaving poetry and vulnerability as a thread that bound them together.
The three-day encounter marked only the beginning of a three-year process as IAM believes that meaningful change and healing require sustained community and support, not just a single powerful experience. In working towards healing for LGBTQI+ people of faith, creative practices that are embodied and sustained over time allow us to curate our process, and this workshop worked to un(b)lock the participants’ abilities to use reflective sensory writing as a method. By welcoming every part of ourselves and our shared experiences, we discover that each has been sent as a guide from beyond. Truly, healing in community.
Below are two of the written pieces that emerged from this transformative experience.
“The T is Gone” by Vuyo Ngcofe
There is something not right with me.
I am feeling sick
but not with fever, not with flu.
It is a sickness of knowing,
and not understanding
why I am bleeding.
My mother gives me a cloth.
Later, we graduate
to pads.
She tells me I am a girl
because that’s what they all say.
“Nontombi,” they call me,
as if naming me could make it true.
I hate this bleeding
that stains every month
like punishment.
But I accept it
because what else can I do?
Ndingu Nontombi,
I say to myself,
I just need to act like a girl.
That’s not hard, right?
But girls don’t speak like me,
so I change my voice
I soften, I lower, I swallow myself.
Girls wear skirts
I hate skirts.
My sister buys me dresses,
a pink blowsy
I never wear,
but I keep it.
A trophy of surrender.
I became a thief.
Stealing moments in fitting rooms,
trying on Spiderman shirts
and lying
“I didn’t see it wasn’t Barbie.”
Always apologising
for being myself.
Years pass.
Matric arrives.
I fight
this time I win.
A grey suit from Foschini,
a grey blowzy,
small black heels,
a Bostonia hat.
For one night,
I am almost me.
But even now,
in my office
they call me Sis Vuyo,
Ms Ngcofe.
What do you mean
this is still following me?
I remember
I was a girl.
Now I must be a woman.
At least, they say,
I am a black butch lesbian.
A name not mine,
but one they can handle.
Then white coats,
hospital halls,
and suddenly
everything starts
to feel right.
The T begins.
A journey with joy,
a journey with pain,
a journey
into myself.
Needles in the thigh.
A voice that deepens.
A face that sharpens.
A body that begins
to feel like home.
But now
The T is gone.
The hope is gone.
The buildings are closed,
the curtains are drawn.
The funding is finished.
And I am back
bleeding in ways
that have no blood.
Wandering halls of silence,
hoping someone, somewhere
will say:
You are not alone.
You are not forgotten.
You are not a mistake.
But all I hear
is the echo of locked doors,
and the soft rustle
of a pink blowsy
still hanging
in my closet.
A Letter To My Son by Pamela Ntshekula
When I was fourteen, the world went quiet.
My mom passed, and suddenly everything lost its color.
The only piece of her that stayed with me was a scent—her Apple body spritzer. One soft spray and she’s there again, like a hug I can breathe in, like a giggle floating through the room.
Years rolled on, and I carried that scent like a tiny treasure. I also carried a dream: to be a mom myself. But the road wasn’t easy. I prayed, I cried, I doubted. Month after month, hope felt like a game the universe was winning.
Then one day—oh baby—life surprised me. My little boy arrived, small and perfect, and suddenly the colors came rushing back. He became my healing, my proof that miracles don’t follow calendars.
I tell him stories about the grandmother he’ll never meet. I promise he’ll always feel a grandmother’s love, even if it comes from the paternal side. He deserves that magic: the cuddles, the warmth, the whispered “I love you’s.”
Some nights, when he’s fast asleep, I pour a tiny splash of tequila, set out a glass of sparkling water and Tabasco, and just sit with the quiet. It’s my little celebration—of survival, of love, of how unique our journey is.
The scent of Apple spritzer drifts through the air as I watch my boy dream. I imagine the future we’re building full of laughter, full of light. And I lift my glass and whisper a toast:
Here’s to you, my sunshine boy. May your days be bold, your dreams wide, and your heart always wrapped in the love of the women who came before you.
