AWE-some

My friend is home after a long time.

I love her.

She understands me and all my motions perfectly. When I was lost in the stifling space of disapproval, she swam with me and saw me through the tides. She also laughed and chuckled when, at the end of a ludicrously long road, we managed to pick out the little bits of love along the way. Technology, of course, means that we talk more often than we would otherwise, but the air always tastes different when you share it with a friend.

After our brief meeting-because there can never be enough time to enjoy love- I was on my way back to a hectic space where time flies and moments are notions enjoyed only by fools.

Something was different though.

I had on me, strings of affection, kissing my heart, the way soft cotton fibers would your clothes on a windy day. It was such a light feeling, slowly feeding colour to my senses. The heat, I remember, was unforgiving but what I felt was encapsulating tenderness from nature. It was almost like I floated through streets I have often feared to walk. I saw every scent, murky and pretty, bleed into my nostrils with kindness I could never dream up.

Did I taste the architecture? Listening to the flavours build up in my mouth and explode in a delicious smile?

What was this feeling?

Bliss. Absolute bliss.

When finally, I settled into my seat, and had to respond to how I was?

‘Great’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, I am fantastic.’

‘why?’

Why are we so scared of joy? So quick to doubt delight? Here I was, enjoying every morsel of life, and being asked to validate it.

What do I say? Do I dig into lengthy detail? How do I explain the sun’s caresses on my skin? where do I find letters to spell out this new sound of my spirit? How do I describe this without understating it?

‘Just. I am fantastic because I am alive’.

‘Oh’

‘That’s right…awe’.

the trilogy (part 3)

sometimes i feel like sitting in a dark room.
no dreams.
no stars.
not a single thought- and allow the night to swallow me, suck me into its abyss of eternal black.
in that womb of darkness, i imagine myself crying,uninterrupted. not the pretty sobs that are punctuated with watchful sighs. i imagine my skin, covered, head to toe, in brutally painful songs, tearing my skin with their melodies, drawing tears from lifeless eyes and breaking my heart over and over again.
in this blanket, i imagine feeling every part of my body, and then, almost immediately, going numb.
i experience death taking over me and i am not scared.
see, fear, is flooded, doused by fierce screams.

sometimes i feel like i am all alone. like i am already in this place  where i am suffering in plain sight, with no one noticing the wounds.

when i eventually step out of my dark thoughts, the memories still haunt me. they follow me in my sleep, every time i close my eyes, crawling through my lids as shadows do through walls and closed doors.

i am alive.- but my brain carries me, ever so often, to my grave.

the trilogy (part 2)

Dear Love,

Did you sleep well last night?

Did the stars soothe you to your dreams with their enchanting patterns?

How were your dreams? Layered with exquisite colours flowing into rivers of rainbows and sunshine?

Did you scream? Did your demons seep out of their cauldrons to poison your light? The dreams; were they ominous, floating over uncertain terrain, guilt filled paths and painful wells?

Did you wake up wailing, cradling your soul trying to breath, hoping every gasp would replace the dirge replaying in your heart?

Did your eyes turn in their  sockets to reveal your empty insides-Your dark skeletal spirit moving through waves of silence?

Did you sleep soundly, peace in hand: or did you, like me, lose your soul to the night?

the trilogy (part 1)

Two years ago, a dear friend invited me to her birthday party. It was a small affair. Bossom friends, music and maybe some drinks is what she had said. Being young, i assumed this would be the worst party ever, in fact, i remember a conversation with another of the invitees discussing how ‘awkward it will be having to make conversation and listen to soft rock’ how awful!

Two years later, there is nothing i want more than descent conversation and good music.

Until recently, i have been afraid of happiness. i have been bashful of any event, that would awaken my soul. Warm embraces would be stored in the pits of the closet. Rich and colourful conversation- the kind that has you shifting in your seat excitedly or sunken in your bubble of awe- listening- have been my best kept secrets.  

I am learning though, that there exists beauty and wonder -spiralling into my spirit-in every straw of oxygen.

Past scribbles allow me the luxury of showing you how far from the thick black i have emerged.(in parts 2 and 3)

And because life is a treat...,that party, stirred a conversation that marked the beginning of one of the most beautiful relationships i have today.

The God in Us

The clutter in my head is slowly dissolving into peaceful surrender. This is what Angus and Julia stone do to me. As the delicious melodies flow in through my ears, the day’s burdens seep out without as much as a whimper through the invisible cracks in my skin. In such moments of tranquillity, I allow my thoughts to wander, and often I am surprised at how in this pure space,I can conjure the filthiest, darkest images.

Tonight though, my mind strings marshmallow images of pinks and sky blues.

You see, I have just finished reading a blog post about how, a couple, after trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant, finally got the two lines on that treacherous stick. The read takes me back ten years when my aunt, wild as a berry, settled into marriage...and changed. Her dreams opened up to accommodate the aspirations of her husband. We all watched, as she became a woman, a wife and then a dreamer. Ten years my aunt went on her knees every night and again in the morning-crying out to whatever gods-praying for a child.  We all listened as she tried to make wagers with the spirits. She offered sacrifices and made promises- anything. Everything- for a chance to be a mother.  How selfless she already was to her unborn infant.

The tears never stopped. She cried. Her husband cried. I cried. We all wept...and ten years later, when Jaden ,in his own time, joined the family, we wept some more.

Josh is now on my mind. I met him at a children’s home and fell in love with him. I have flooded my phone with pictures of him and still the aching for him overwhelms me. maybe, God, in his wisdom, gave us all the strength, that his mother may have lacked when she left him, to love him without conditions.

This life, with all of its murky hours, is punctuated with pure angels. At every turn, these children, untouched cleanse, even for a minute, the rot that can be humanity. These angels, i believe, are Gods way of reminding us that he is always with us.

These faces are the faces of God-pure and healing.  

longing whispers

Let’s go someplace quiet.

Just you and I.

Slide into this fantasy with me. Shut your eyes and open your skin.

Listen to my warmth mon poison.

Touch. Skin. Soft.

Do you feel the air? Thick with sweet whispers chanting songs of passion?

My head is spinning.

I can taste your scent.

Where is your outline in this dark ecstasy?

Mouth. Silk. Cream

Come closer. Tear through this wall of heat between us.

My heart is light, floating over cotton clouds beneath it.

My head is spinning.

I am hungry for your skin.

Quivering. Love. Want.

Let’s go someplace quiet.

Just you and I.

I am drunk with desire.

Douse my longing.

To really live!

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”
― Henry David Thoreau

‘BRUNIZEM I SAY AND BRUMAGGEN’

I was listening to a song this afternoon. One a friend played the other day that has since possessed a sweet spot of my mind. The prose of the song is nothing worth repeating but the confidence that these lines are delivered- the surety this artist has in his work- that is admirable and certainly enviable

That small, easily ignored aspect of the song, got me thinking (I feel the need to, at this point, warn the readers that I am no ordinary girl and my thoughts are provoked by trivial, at times even meaningless events)…where was I? Yes. I got to thinking. What is it that makes him, this artist, so definite, that what he is saying will be bought, consumed and repeated-as hip-hop lyrics often are- by his listeners? I don’t have the answer-but I do have two ideas.

Choice: The voluntary act to select that which is preferred.

It is safe to assume that the artist chose to believe. He Voluntarily selected courage (another beautiful word) over insecurity. Oh, how often we misuse this word. We are told repeatedly of the choices we have. How it is your choice to do this over the other; that you can voluntarily select who you love and further, how they love you. I still have irreconcilable thoughts about the former, but of the latter-how you are loved- let us dance. How do I voluntarily- do, make, bring about, undertake of my own accord- select how another person feels or to what extent they feel about me?

Worth: the level at which someone or something deserves to be valued.

In order to effectively choose, you must know what you prefer: and how do you prefer, favor and in essence discriminate unless you know what your tastes are? And how do you voluntarily select your taste unless you can understand your value-understand what you can and cannot have and why you can and cannot have?

The artist, it seems, must have the ideal brew of these two brands. He voluntarily selects audacity because he believes he is deserving of it.

In matters of love, those slippery silk matters- is it possible to employ worth and choice with equal measure. When your ideal partner does not choose you, does it mean you are not deserving of their perfection? Do you then ‘choose’ to walk away? ‘Choose’ because you are doing it involuntarily and selecting the un-preferred option of walking away from a possible future with this person.  

In those delicate matters that pull at our tendons, at times, harder than we hope, it is easier to abandon all literature, all meaning and be, as Sujata Bhatt wrote, Brunizem. Feel, see, hear and taste the experience in your own language.

Because I am a queen.

There is always pressure to be profound when you are granted (because it is a privilege) pen and paper (or just a keyboard and free time). What are these thoughts that cannot be contained in your head? ...these letters that tear through your skin? what is this that is worth saying and more, be heard?

love.

Because it cannot be ignored.

Over lunch this afternoon, I asked my married friend to tell me the story of how he met his wife. It turned out to be a delicious tale of a virgin man who was unacquainted to love when he first encountered it. He told of sensuous delights in his journey that saw this naiveté of love burst into crimson passion and finally settled gently to become tender affection in matrimony.

He loves his wife.

I know because his bulky masculinity softens when he mentions her name. His mouth curves into bubbles of ooohs and aaahs when he pauses,clearly running her features in his mind.

‘She makes the marriage’  he finally whispers.

This woman is his Eve, his pinnacle of grace and bed of acceptance.

I want that. how can anyone not?

…then my other friend, unmarried and enchanted by this miracle of love that had since floated our souls to a fluffy cloud of warmth says…

‘you can…it is a woman who decides if a man will love the whore in her, the girl in her, or the queen in her’