the first essay i ever wrote was two lines long. ‘my holidays’. eight years old, words were what i read in roald dahl books and what usually passed the lips when they parted. we had come back from our mid-year break and our teacher tasked us all with writing about how we had spent our holidays. i didn’t think to groan at the call for labour or delight in believing we were fortunate to be given an opportunity to ‘express’ ourselves. i had no concept of language nor of literature; again, i read plenty of books and took instruction from many an adult but words remained meaningless in my perception of them. electromagnetic, they pervaded the everyday without a second thought. third graders rarely question the source of images on a television or ponder the primality of wifi; such things have always existed, they need not ever be explained or discussed even with a child.

i was not interested in recounting the mundanities of, in a literal sense, the day before. although i viewed the activity as fruitless, i complied. i wrote about the sleepover, i wrote about the foods i ate, and i wrote about just how much fun i had as a child away from school. upon completion, i felt no different. my teacher marked her approval with a red tick and a written message; something about ‘sounds fun!’ or was it ‘superb!!!’? i didn’t know it then but i know now that that is when the festering began.

that essay was but the beginning of another decade of forced writings and other creative assignments crossing various media. to my apathy, creativity was ingrained in the curriculum all the way to the end of high school along with all the other disciplines. i knew my hypotenuse and i knew my muse. on tougher days, they were the same. why do they allow us this working reprieve from mathematics and other sciences? finding an answer to my question didn’t concern me until i finished high school and creativity was no longer being asked of me.

last year i sat at home on my bed twiddling my thumbs as i waited to start film school this year. i was in stasis, school would only begin the next year—a place where i would have creativity delegated to me as a reward for my choice in academy. there was no external pressure to do anything of the sort and so i sat on my hands for twelve months assuming i would, in miracle, experience a turn of will on the first day there. i felt time rend the skin of months from my body with an increasing awareness; the closer i got to starting school, the more sick i felt from nothing in particular. what i initially explained away as back-to-school angst made itself known as a festering upon some introspection. that festering. nothing material was pushing me to create but something that permeated my being was. in pushing out. out pushing in. stretch. twist. make! say! do! they forced an artist into me and watered her for years. now unfed, she sought to ruin my life with her discontent.

it was late in the year when i met myself so i only had about two months to kick myself for ten. why hadn’t i recognised myself sooner? quintessentially me, i spent a year at home busying myself with nothing and laid awake each night wondering why i felt so unfulfilled. cursing circumstance, family, old friends, old lovers, strangers—anyone but myself—for the ‘fact’ that i had no time and no resources. one of the mornings after one of those nights, i awoke resolved to change at least one thing in my thought spiral so i began to post videos of no relation to my dilemma at the time. comedic trifle that got me on the screens of hundreds of thousands. it felt good for a time until a certain type of comment rose to prevalence. ‘is this poetry?’, ‘please write a book!’, ‘your words are everything.’ the validation lifted my spirits but their implication brought me back down just as quickly. strangers the world over recognising me through glass in the span of 15 seconds when i had spent a lifetime growing, hidden under the canopy of my flesh. it pained sweetly, like a candied blade slicing the edges of my tongue. i could taste the sugared red. subsequent videos attracted similar praise and encouragement in greater volume as i began to speak my word in blood. still, she clawed outwardly.

i had done everything i thought she wanted but i could still feel her hunger parallel to my own. again, i folded my head inwards with my eyes open and saw nothing but the tissue time no longer guarded. i did hear, however, a voice. i’m unsure who of us it belonged to but it spoke to me of my apprehensions and fear of being perceived. they’d recognised her without ever having seen her, i was afraid of the things they’d hear when i fixed my mouth to speak. i would say ‘one’, she would say ‘two’, and through their ears would ring ‘three’. i thought about what the point might be in saying anything at all if it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. i thought it better to commune with myself than publicly straddle the dichotomy and so i withdrew once more.

i am 20 years of age. the only world i have ever known is the one i was born into. the one in which i, and a considerably sized number of those who know of it, were socialised into conceiving of art as commodity before as spectacle, expression of self, information, or politics. art is made. product. art is stolen, art is sold, art is bought, art is compared, art is taught, art is shared, art is destroyed. art is made. product. it’s the way earth turns on its axis and the way i pay a small monthly fee for music and television; i am a student after all. it makes perfect sense the frequency of questions like ‘how can my art appeal to the greatest number of people while making the greatest profit?’. i’m asking.

i figure i should just say what i want to say regardless of who’s listening—if anyone. the rot is palpable and it will destroy me. i’ve practiced self-expression before; what i now realise were subconscious attempts at appeasing my superimposed presence. sketches in schoolbooks, scribblings in more schoolbooks (those that lived in my room even when i was supposed to be doing work in them. at school). interesting to see what my mind looked like and surprisingly unmoving to read what i had to say to myself. was that it? abstract doodles and personal ramblings? i did feel expressed though she hungered in no new ways. i stopped drawing because i was bad at it and i stopped journalling because it felt to me like schoolwork in addition to the actual schoolwork i seldom did. i was also plagued by the recurring vision of my mother discovering my entries and arming herself with them, ensuring her victory on the psychic battleground. the trouble of creation seemed to me to far outweigh its supposed benefits, which in my case were none.

so i took to the internet for solace. i watched the lives of others so contented with their states of being. they wore clothes, ate food, spent time with each other, spent time alone, entertained hobbies and occupied schools and workplaces. none of them spoke of autophagy. i wondered if she’d eat me for not being able to feed her the way she was used to. as a result of my fear, there are now currently several accounts on various platforms where i used to post jokes, poems and again, personal ramblings. essentially what i’d been doing in solitude except this time, i wasn’t the only member of my audience. this continued for months without question until i naturally tired of the work itself and quit, as i’m wont to. unencumbered by creative labour, i once more had the mental capacity to maintain the existence of a second instance within myself. i had almost forgotten how hungry i was. almost. what was it about the way i ran several instagram accounts and two blogs that pleased her in the same way it did for me to submit an essay to the perusal of any of the various language teachers i’ve had throughout my schooling?

spectation.

it didn’t just need letting out; it needed witnessing. i saw that i was battling again with the notion that art doesn’t have to be shared. proponents of the cause preach that one can find, should find, satisfaction in subjecting oneself to one’s own expression. it is in this way, they argue, that everyone who fancies themselves as such can rest nights knowing that they’re entitled to the label of ‘artist’. words that would have comforted me had they not been said with a malice that implies art created specifically to be shared is of zero merit. perhaps those are my own anxieties projected onto others’ constructions of art as a concept. i held a quiet shame in knowing my art best fulfilled me when shared. ‘i must love the attention,’ i thought. i did. i do. i also love to be told how someone revisits a previous work of mine; something i’ve cast out—let go—stays moored at the shore of me when someone takes refuge in it. i love to hear about how i’ve put words to a feeling a stranger tells me we have in common. i love when someone admits to having no relation to my art yet makes sure to let me know they appreciate the simple fact that i’ve shared such a part of myself. they tell me how ‘moved’ they are. i say nothing. still. they’ve moved me more than they know.

my neuroses aside, i believe art to be a language of its own and its varied mediums dialects. but unlike the languages we speak and sign, its amorphousness is how we’re able to impress upon each other concepts more abstracted than those language describes as abstract. art is an infestation of consciousness. i’m trying to get you to perceive the world as i do. unbound by the structure and convention that govern everyday communication, we’re able to say so much more to each other. it is for this reason i find writing as an artistic medium so alluring; i appeal to linguistic laws using words that exist in both our minds as meaning the same thing while simultaneously communicating to you the very essence of my being in a way only i will ever truly understand but that you can decipher within the frameworks of your own being, resulting in your own understanding of how i’ve put myself forward. the disparity between the me i express and the me you decode can be felt by us both; we’re not sure what lies in the gap but just know that it is there. like that, i have given myself unto you in a way you could plainly describe as indescribable or begin anew the process of trying to express a part of yourself in the hope that i understand.

now, i’ve been in film school for half a year and my mid-year break is over. i started the break at a friend’s place where we had an iteration of the same conversation we had on december 31 last year. a conversation we’ve been remixing almost daily ever since. my life is moving in a way that pleases those around me. i’m doing exceptionally well at school and not minding anything else but school. my results look good on paper but i’m not satisfied with my progress. i’m filled with it all yet do nothing with it. fully formed and hollow. like the cheap dolls we used to get from china plaza sat amongst the barbies for tea as we made them lead fuller lives than the one i currently do. we didn’t just say we would be doing good. i said i would live the life i know i ‘should’ be living. i thought i knew what that meant then. i definitely do now.

i am zkiaba. i am a writer. i am a filmmaker. i am an artist. i am a promise i’ve made to myself and broken more times than will do me well to count.

the past four weeks i had a sleepover at my friend’s place, made yummy food, and watched movies. so were my holidays.

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