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.

 

These Hands

These hands have held together families,

spreading glue over broken pieces of family relationships,

hoping it will seep into the cracks,

and call itself healing.

These hands have prepared meals,

as offerings of forgiveness when words couldn’t rise to the occasion.

These hands, these skinny nimble hands,

that get so cold, so quickly, have wrapped themselves around souls,

releasing fire from a furnace burning,

inextinguishable,

hoping to feel warmth in return

Simply trying to bring warmth in a world where winter never pauses.

These hands have always been good at constructing,

creating art and poetry.

Turning people into art,

turning love into poetry.

These hands have turned my heart into an instrument, and have turned the string of my heart into the kinds of symphonies that turn peasants into poets.

My hands have the kind of magic to turn your lies into rhythm .

Heartbreak into stories,

my tragedies into remedies.

These hands that caught tears in the middle of prayer,

and yet always had the strength to lift themselves to praise.

These hands,

my God these hands,

have been carved with the lifetimes of my lineage.

The map of where I came from, where I’ve been,

where I am going,

and where I can always return to.

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”

Lioness

When I first saw you my heart went wild

I roared into the horizon

To thank the earth for bringing me my king

I went wild for you

And so I wondered

Will your love be the thing that tames me?- Love, your Lioness

Lonely

In the shadows of my lonely nights and in the hems of my expectant dreams

I woke up one morning and came to the realization

That I had beeeen single

So I took my battle to my knees

Praying “Father please,

Bring me my man.”

We closed off on that conversation with empty “Amens” and unheard instructions.

Loneliness, will dance towards you

She will swing her hips to a song you can’t help but dance to

She will grind her body against you, and force you to notice her.

And I noticed her. God, how could I ignore her?

It was 11 am,

You know the kind of hour where your demons are screaming but God’s voice is dead quiet?

So I listened to my dark angels, I fed on what they had to say

And I picked up my phone,

Saw these boys as toys

And turned love into a twisted game I knew how to play.

I fed off their attention,

Leeched on their emotions as self-validation

I became little girl seeking to be a woman

Someone’s woman

Anyone’s woman.

I played hearts till they were broken

And turned them into broken records of

“I love you. Why won’t you let me do the same?”

I told them “Baby I am a wild beast, nothing anyone can tame.”

I played this sick game until the pleasure turned into pain.

What did I gain?

I was a Sunflower

An Empress

This I knew

I was craving warmth, sunlight and a little bit of love too.

I knew I was a flower, wilting and rusted brown

Instead of seeking glorious water

I danced in the flames of late night texts and calls hoping to call it love.

They say God’s voice is the loudest in the morning.

That might explain why I kept sleeping in.

Dear God, oh dear God I want a good man.

God looked back at me, holding my sunflower petals,

Shook His head at the sight and asked

“But are you a good woman?”

We closed off that conversation with empty “Amens” and unheard instructions.

Loneliness,

I tell you, she is a vision.

She walked door to door raising funds to spread her lies to more people and asked if I’d sign her partition

So I signed my name to join her list of deception

And swore my undying devotion to a god of destruction.

It was 11 am.

You know the kind of hour where demons rejoice in your travesty and the Savior weeps at your insistent dishonesty.

I sought out Judas and asked him to make an honest woman out of me.

I fed him my body, and he ate like it was his last supper

And I wondered how it was that I always remained starved.

I asked him to call me beautiful

He said “I mean, you’re pretty.”

I always prayed for a man who’d see me and think “Let me worship.”
And yet here was a man who couldn’t see the temple in me.

God came knocking,

And this man answered my door

God came asking “Where is she who I call my daughter of Eden?”

This man answered “She does not live here anymore.”

Later that night I sought God and He came

I was mad and filled with anger and vile violence

“My Lord I asked you for my man,

But who is this you brought me.”

My God, held my already wilted sunflower petals in his hand,

Shook his head and said

“Daughter I made you a queen,

Yet you go around making yourself a peasant,

I marked you as mine,

Where on you did I write ‘Concubine.’

Do not forget

I left Adam in a season of preparation before I introduced him to Eve

One does not make a queen come without preparing her castle

One does not make a goddess without me, your God.

I planted you, my gorgeous sunflower

But first I prepared the soil for you.

But you chose to uproot yourself from where I positioned you because you thought you knew what’s best for you,

So do not yell at me dear daughter, I wanted us to work us one but you chose to make us an unqualified two.

Little girl you chose to swim in muddy waters, don’t you know I am your mighty oceans and peaceful seas?

Oh daughter, this is not the man I picked for you, but this is what happens when you choose to do things against me.

But fear not young queen, head up my Holy Poetry.

Remember I Am Love, and there for Love is of Me and it shall be of you,

Trust me.

Remember who you are, you are my Sunflower, nothing short of awesome

110 percent, my seed.

Your lips carry the songs of confidence

Those hips the promise of beautiful dominance

You are both storm and peace,

The land and the seas.

Listen to me, a new and indestructible spirit in you has awoken.

Stay well, dear Sunflower Empress. I the Lord have spoken.”

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