The Silence

I watch the people.

I watch the people retweet “woke posts”.

Watch them pin their favourite borrowed thoughts.

I watch them call this fighting for the cause.

I remain silent. But I am always watching,

I watch the people put up Instagram stories of their revelations

In the name of starting a conversation.

I watch the same people walk away from conversations before it even starts.

I watch them brush it under, “it’s not even worth it.”

I watch them.

I watch myself be them.

But some days I cannot bring myself to be anything other than silent.

I grew up saying,

“Someday I will die for a cause. I will fight for your people.”

I held my fist in the air, and promised God I meant it.

Today, as I watch the people, silent,

I’ve lost sight of what that cause even is.

I wonder if they have too.

They don’t fight the problem. They fight each other.

I remain silent in spaces where they want me to be loud.

But I promise you, I hear them.

It is the most ignorant who are the loudest.

but often, the most cowardly who are silent.

And I watch how loud leads.

and silence yields.

I watch,

Watch myself draw deeper away from the people,

Even when all I want to do is fight for the people.

But the people I tell you,

The people have forgotten what it means to fight for something.

The people only ever want to fight.

The people argue, and call that fighting.

The people talk, but never listen.

The people say they want change; no.

The people are angry.

The people want to stay angry.

Change means changing.

The people do not want to be told to change.

They fight each other on days when they really should fight for each other.

And I watch.

How we are truly a family.

Where greed is passed around the dinner table,

And self-hate is our only portion.

We say grace to a god of division that we created,

And silence the God of Love we curse.

Maybe that is why we think He is silent.

And I watch.

Watch myself turn away

Walk away from the bickering.

The tearing down instead of the lifting up.

I watch.

Because you see, speaking only works when people are listening.

No one is listening.

I’ve seen it.

How sometimes even with the most beautiful intentions,

brings swift destruction.

Instead we fight without cause.

We fight with hate.

Fighting, has become the place love goes to die.

And all we do is standby and watch.

 

She’s A Winter Coat

Winter has come.
And my baby is leaving,
She’s walking out the door for the fifth time.
I convince myself it’s only been five times. Accepting it could be more would show just how good she is at quitting
Or just how easy I make it to quit.
It’s cold today.
She takes heat with her as though she was the very essence of warmth,
The absence of darkness
Her light a fire. She always kept me burning but now,
She’s gone.
Winter has come.
She said she’s not coming back. Not this time. She can’t do this anymore. Can’t do us anymore.
I hate that this time I believe her. But I know she’ll be back.
She knows I get cold. Without her.
She knows I hate winter. The way it comes in gently, settling above us before making a home out of us. The way it stills me. Has my blood flow at a halt. Has my body in surrender. Vulnerable. So defenseless the only way out is to come in.
And maybe that’s the thing.
Inside, myself it’s dark here.
The darkness is loud and I’m too silent to still it.
She is my heart’s winter coat,
The music of her warmth silencing the voices that taunt me.
My monsters call her friend.
She calls them defeated.
She’s a Winter coat. Protects me from the winter. Protects me from the cold. Protects me from me.
But that’s all she can ever be.
A beautiful winter coat, to entangle myself in.  Because seasons change. The flowers blossom,
The greenery grows in places tears flowed fiercely.
And after,
I turn to her and see Summer.
And then she leaves. She walks away. Again.
Because the thing about a winter coat
Is you’ll embrace it, love it and appreciate it when it’s cold.
But alas,
You’ll drop it the moment the warmth suffocates you. Threatens to make a home in you. And she’ll feel my reluctance. My rejection.
And that’s when she’ll leave. And I’ll let her. Remove her until I need her again.
Until winter comes again.

On Turning 21

On turning 21,

I found love.

And it was glorious.

I found gentleness, and as a gift to myself,

I bathed in it.

I found softness within myself. Soft love, soft breath and soft heartbeats.

And I deserve to treat myself accordingly,

On turning 21,

I remembered all the times I wasn’t.

I play my life back, like my favourite book,

unfolding the doggy flags,

hands over the tear stains, reading my favourite pages,

the ones that made me feel most heroic, most vulnerable,

That made me feel.

The ones where I cried,

and laughed,

and laughed at my crying,

only to cry once more.

I have lived through the most beautiful stories

and conquered through the most heartbreaking tragedies,

all in the name of poetry.

All in the name of growth.

On turning 21,

I remember that I have loved because I am made of Love.

I have been hurt, and I have hurt people I claimed to care about.

On some nights, the demons of these memories won’t easily let me sleep.

But self-forgiveness is my Bible, and I am a firm meditator

I have been broken,

screamed as I cut the pain out of me.

I shattered, and on some nights I still hear the melody.

But my healing, my God, it is so beautiful.

It’s magic.

On turning 21,

I remember I am magic.

I am art, my own favourite poem.

On turning 21 I remember every time I breathe, love flows from my lungs.

Today,

I woke up and knelt.

No pretense,

with tears of joy dripping from my temple.

With praises of thanks that shook me to the very core.

On turning 21,

I heard Love say,

“Nana, on this day I made you. Rejoice, for I am glad in it.”

I asked God, on turning 21,

if truly He could bless me more than he already has,

Love said,

“You have no idea”

Louder For The People At The Back

I did not want to write this poem.

It sounds like too many poems I have written.

And I am all out of metaphors, disturbing imageries and hashtags.

My hand keeps cramping, tired of writing out the word “justice” in vain.

My veins are tired of deceit,

I prayed for peace, to silence my heart’s turbulence

to silence my heart’s rifle,

and then I remembered they never do the same.

I prayed, for God’s mercy on them,

but they never do the same.

Mercy,

to them,

is everything black people are made of,

and we’ve seen what they do to black people.

Say it louder, for the people at the back.

The people who serve bullets, to protect their supremacy, all in the name of “protect and serve.”

Where “put your hands up.” is the prerequisite to,

“Today we lay another down.”

I had the right, to remain silent.

I did not want to write this poem.

But I could not forsake writing this poem.

I could not breathe.

I couldn’t.

We couldn’t.

He couldn’t.

Say it louder for the people at the back.

Our brothers,

the ones at the back,

The problem is, when you are so far back at the back,

so far down in the system,

that no one hears you when you say,

“Please, I am going to die.”

I did not.

God knows, I did not

want to write this poem.

-Proverbs 31:8-9

How To Heal

It hurts,

Stop trying to pretend that sharp nudge playing at your torn apart heart does not exist,

Because it does,

And trust me,

It was never meant to be quiet.

Pain, battles itself over and over,it cannot possibly be a discreet matter.

That dark room is by no means your comfort,

Never make a friend of out of your demons.

Allow yourself only one day to wallow in darkness,

When you do so,

Turn off all cellular devices,

Switch it off, disconnect, be offline

You are officially unavailable.

Close the blinds, turn on music if you must.

Quietly sing along,

Or loudly,

Whichever shuts the thoughts out quickest.

Eat.

Worry about carbs and calories on a day when your heart isn’t experiencing severe malnutrition.

Bless yourself with sweetness.

Your wounds cannot handle anymore salt.

And at the end of the day, reflect.

Yes the hurt is still raw, but you made it. 

You are still magic, even if your lights are out.

You are a peaceful storm,

and right now you are slightly more storm than peace

And that is okay.

Tomorrow wake up,

Open the blinds, let the light in

Let it hug your skin tomorrow.

Just breathe.

Say a prayer.

Or cry.  

A wise friend once said tears are the purest form of prayer.

Drink coffee,

Eat a fruit, treat yourself with a little more upbeat music.

God,

Always God,

It still hurts.

But you are still.

Here.

And that, is all that matters.

Of African Soil

Coarse, thick soil tinted hair,

Born with this quintessential soil caressed skin

Where melanin burns in abundance, from deep within.

Let the song sing, that

I am of African soil.

When my hand touches the earth beneath me

where the blood of our brave warriors still leaves a stain of their courage

So I may walk on it freely,

There let the song of the soil sing, that

I am of African soil.

When I am awoken by my heart’s voracious tendencies

which whispers to me, “Someday we shall belong”

when my heart cries for this home, which often does not see me as its own,

when this Mother country rejects me,

let the saddest of this song sing, that

I am of African soil.

When *uGogo holds my hand,

Her eyes elegiac whenever she speaks of my grandfather,

Let her tell me of their story:

The vivacious vixen and her chiseled empire of a man.

Let her song sing, that

That they are of African soil.

When I cross the border,

From my place of birth,

The *City of Kings.

Returning back home, to the Land Of The Brave.

Let my pride sing, that

I am of African soil

When I sit in a taxi,

With an Oshiwambo taxi driver,

And an Afrikaans woman, and I,

A little Ndebele girl,

Beside a Herero elder, with each strand of his grey hair an adage.

Each of us singing songs of our own unique stories,

Separately, but bonded by our lyrics of peace and unity

Of what we agree is our country,

Oh, let my heart sing, that

I am of African soil

When I sit down, pen and paper in front of me

And try to encapsulate the beauty of this Mother Desert,

In a quandary over how best to describe her,

And this continent she is so graciously planted in.

Cosseting the African people,

The great people of a continent so beautiful and protecting

Like the lioness who turns into

A blood-lust vulture

At any sign of danger towards her cubs.

Let them hear my cry, that

I am of Her

I am of African soil,

Of African strength,

Of Africa.

*uGogo- Grandmother in isiNdebele/isiZulu

*City of Kings- Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Ode to International Woman’s Day

I know you’ve been ignoring me,

I know you try to deny it, but things just aren’t the same between us.

Frankly, I miss you.

I miss us, and who we used to be.

Fire and Water all in one,

We were the storm and the peace.

I miss the good times,

The genuine laughs,

The internal smiles.

You’ve changed.

And no, don’t get defensive, because we both know this is true.

You’ve been seeing other people.

And you know I’ve never been the jealous type,

But I can tell you are doing it so you won’t see me,

Baby you no longer make time for me.

You’ve been wandering these streets as though they are your own,

But when do you plan on coming home?

Where this heart beats for you,

Truly and magnificently.

I can tell you are lonely.

You just cannot.

You are searching for a hero among villains. Among the dragons we used to slay.

“I need him to save me.”

Forgetting I am the first and only hero your heart needed.

In that moment, you stare deep into my eyes and you whisper quietly,

As if these words are the biggest sin you’ve ever uttered.

And you tell me,

“I am scared to be alone.”

Brokenly, I tell you,

“I am here.”

“I am here.”- Letter to Self