Thabile Makue is a South African healer, facilitator, and writer at AfroElle magazine. She was the 2016–17 Current State of Poetry National South African Slam champion. Her debut collection, i know how to fix myself, was released in 2017 by the African Poetry Book Fund as part of their New-Generation African Poets chapbook box set Nne. Her work has been included in multiple journals as well as 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent.

“The author’s focus on blood as both the root and the salve for violence is an ingenious metaphor employed throughout the book under numerous guises.”-Veronica Schorr, New York Journal of Books

• li teboho    malimaseko    giving birth to my mother    unborn    inside    outside    the bondage    the daughter’s inheritance    her mother’s loss    the children’s right    giving birth to my father    grandmother’s womb    blood crowing    uncreation    ‘meleand these are eyes    and these are lips    and this is nose    and this is tongue    and these are ears    and this is heart    ‘mele oa bobeliroot body    year body    blood body    time body    too many body    fight body    wound body    nahanot to die alone    refugee bones    mantsoe    before the next one    aragonda out of battle    sechesopassage    mollo    marriage distress signal    church womxn    the wailers    hush now baby    close    the handmaid’s psalm    popelogray mountain    sunset    sunrise    moonlight    starlet    to be wind    river border bosoms    the purge i    drought    the flood    the purge ii    bolokoepeppermint girl    hungry belly universe    those hungry girls    phekoaragonda    not to forget    grandmother’s marriage    to torch    apology to sara    the patch up    the rot the peace    where does love go    the hunger    not to love you    baleful heart    phupjaneapril    phato    may wrists    wait    end ballade    roof top blue    end haunt    body over water    end year    li teboho    glossary