Poetry

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DON’T LEAVE THIS WORLD UNTOUCHED

By / May 5, 2023

I don’t want to lie on my deathbed someday; whether that eventually is thirty or forty years or three weeks from now; and be buried underneath all my regrets. 

I need to create.

I need to leave something that will live long after I’ve left this earth.

I question whether anyone will remember me for what I’ve left behind and if it is even important. 

I want to spend every day of my life creating and as I sit here writing this, I feel myself becoming emotional; tears run down my cheeks and I know, without a shadow of a doubt that this is truly my calling.

I need to create.

In the same way I need to breath.

I need to create something out of nothing.

I need to fill blank pages with my sorrows, worries, and fears and turn it into something beautiful to share with others.

I need to express my thoughts and dreams and connect with others.

And that is ultimately why I need to create, why I need to write. Why my life needs to be an open book.

I need to build a bridge between my fears and another’s loneliness.

I want to leave breadcrumbs in the form of poetry and stories so that someone else can find their way and their voice.

I need to share my life so that another person can be brave enough to share their story.

It is my calling.

My purpose.

Every day that passes that I do not write, express or create, feels truly wasted. On those days I feel as if I’ve betrayed my calling. I have wasted an entire day not living as I should.

I feel as if I did not live at all.

Even when I’ve tried to avoid it, when I’ve tried to ignore it. When I told myself it wasn’t important, there was always this nagging feeling inside me, tugging at me, pushing me in a certain direction.

And I knew, it was futile trying to turn my back on it; I am an artist. I am a creative.

You may not always understand what I create, you may not always enjoy what I share and you may even mock and laugh at me but that will only encourage me more.

Knowing that I am an artist, reminds me that I must create every day. It is not just a calling but it is also a responsibility.

Writing is an art; the blank page is my canvas, words are my paint and the world and this life is my muse.

What you finally see before you; is my work of art.

My gift to you.

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TUESDAY

By / May 1, 2023

It’s another Tuesday
Another week in, another one is on its way out
Another day feeling like the day before
I wear tiredness like an oversized coat;
heavy but somehow keeps the cold out
but the truth is, the cold is not on my skin
It lives in my bones, runs through my veins
I breathe it out
my feet drag, and my eyes burn
sleep is not my friend
It’s another day, much of the same as the days before
They tend to run into one another,
tripping over one another
clumsy and flimsy
Like me
No day is the same
Just as I am not the same
but yet,
It is and I am
It’s another day
Just another Tuesday

Motherless, child, Grief

A MOTHERLESS CHILD

By / Apr 18, 2023

I used to sit on my mother’s lap

Out on the balcony

Watching cars go by

Talking about nothing and everything

She used to stroke my hair

With her aging hands

Or clean my ears with a bobby pin

I could have sat there for hours

I miss being her child

Her youngest daughter

My sisters would tease me, saying I’m spoilt

And her favourite

I would frown, scrunch my nose at them but

Really,

It brought me pure joy

Now I am a motherless daughter

With a daughter of my own

Needing my mother

more than I ever could have ever known

I miss her

I miss my mother every day

I swallow tears and try to ignore the lump

In my throat

Sitting there like a constant reminder of what I lost

I guess it is true what they say

Grief never leaves you

You don’t outgrow it

You simply grow around it.

comfort room, hospitals, life

THE COMFORT ROOM

By / Apr 12, 2023

Sitting in what they call a comfort room after 8 in the morning

I’m watching the door to the theatre

Watching the clock

The comfort room brings little comfort

It’s cold and a lone window is before me covered in blinds

The wall covered in words such as

Harmonious

Healed

Natural

Marvellous

Free

Safe

Happy

Peaceful

Healing

Aware

Conscious

Healthy

comfort room, words, hospitals

All words meant to bring comfort but the irony

Does not miss me

It’s quiet sitting here

Save for the sounds of the machines somewhere in the hospital

And the wheels on the cold tile floors

I feel far away from him

Not knowing what is happening behind that closed theatre door

It holds my heart

And I am locked out of it

I don’t have the access or the authorisation

I watch the door like a predator stalking its prey

Waiting to pounce the minute I see him being wheeled out that room

To take his hands in mine

Kiss his lips

To see his eyes see mine

door, comfort room, hospitals

The only comfort this empty room brings

Is the chance to be with my own thoughts

To allow my inner turmoil to run free and

Keep me company during this time

I fear looking away from the door

I fear I might miss him and never see him again.

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WHAT MADE YOU SO ANGRY?

By / May 1, 2023

Was my skin too dark for you?

Was my hair too coarse for you?

Was my voice too loud for you?

Could you not handle the dip in my hips

or the valleys of my bosom?

Were you angry because you couldn’t dance to the beat

of our African drums or

click to the song we sang so effortlessly?

What was it about us that made you so angry that you decided to

land on our shores and claim what was not yours? 

Was it that we could grow food by simply laying our hands on the ground?

Was it that we grew corn and wheat and fed families without any hindrance?

Was it that we took skin and made clothes?

Tell me, what was it?

Was it our diverse nature and beauty that offended you?

Or was it our resilience?

Was it the strength of our mothers and the power of our fathers

which made you fear?

Was it the look of determination in our eyes as we stared you down

which made you quiver and quake and then take a gun and shove it down our throats?

Was it that we were born of the sun and the earth, a people so natural?

Was it that you couldn’t control us that made you decide to kill us?

Tell me, what was it?

Was it that no matter how hard you tried to make us a

speck in the history books, every page is still filled with the

cries of our ancestors and the stories are still being written to this day?

Go on, tell me.

What made you so angry?

San rock art, writing on the wall, history

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

By / Mar 6, 2023

The writing’s on the wall;

stones and sticks and clay and bricks

tell the stories of our history

written in blood and sweat and thousands of tears

I sit in the quiet of the memory hall,

feeling my throat close up and tears start to flow;

how could it be that a people like me

were treated like less than dirt under my feet

I read about how they painted in song

and wrote stories on stone walls, making their

voices known as only they could

dreams shared by entire generations

almost wiped out by white skinned men

who came from afar on a ship with flags

and guns and bibles and a foreign tongue

We watched you from the shore, we

greeted you and welcomed you with

smiles and meals

You smiled back, the greed showing on your gnashing teeth

On our sacred land, where we were born free

they came and beat us, chained us and took what was ours

made us pay for what we farmed and what we sowed

Our mothers and fathers watered the soil with their blood

from it grew the bones of ancestors

the bones we used to make bows and arrows and

found ourselves fighting for land that was ours to begin with

I am an African! I can hear the screams

I am of this earth, and of this sky and of this land

I am an African!

From the earth we were born

sold as slaves as a child

We are also human they say

while they tie us to a donkey, a horse

the heartbeat of the earth beating beneath our bare feet

The only sign we are still alive

You struck us, you tried to belittle us

you put a price on our humanity

but we rose up ; we marched and we fought back

And now we are here

Telling the stories you tried to make us forget

But we have not forgotten and

we will beat the drums

and sing the songs and

write the stories of our heritage

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THIS TOO SHALL PASS

By / Feb 7, 2023

To the woman sitting alone in her empty house
Full of memories and mementos, wondering where it all went wrong,
I was you.
To the young girl crying her eyes out in the office bathroom, staring at herself
In the mirror, not recognizing the person staring back at her
With bloodshot eyes and tear-stained cheeks,
I understand.
To the tired mother, using her last strength to dress and feed and play with her kids
When she hasn’t eaten or had a decent shower in days,
I have been there.
To the friend that needs comforting and can’t control the tears from flowing,
Feeling as if everything is falling apart,
You will be okay.
It doesn’t matter how strong you feel you need to be or how tired you are and
How many times you need to start over, I want you to know that
This too shall pass.

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ON WRITING

By / Jan 28, 2023

Writing is a release for me. Almost like therapy but without the talking.

When I write down my feelings and thoughts that have kept me hostage or that have made me feel sad or heartbroken or angry and I stare at it on the page before me, I feel a sense of freedom. Almost as if I let go of something. I feel as if I can breath easier, as if I’ve made space in my heart and my spirit for better and more beautiful things.

It’s a healing process. I never want to stop experiencing this when I write. I never want to stop writing.

Even if I never become a best-selling author and no one ever reads anything I write, I’d like to know I’ve left a trail of breadcrumbs to feed someone’s soul.

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PIECES OF ME

By / Dec 31, 2022

we are shaped by our experiences but we can choose how to live out those experiences. We choose how to live, we choose whether we give up or go on. We choose to forgive.

life demands of you to be intentional; intentional about your actions, your energy, your focus, your thoughts and emotions.

It hasn’t been easy but it has been fulfilling

love is one of the most if not the most powerful source of hope we have on this earth

Its not just okay to live as your authentic self, its absolutely necessary.

do not fear.
do not tremble.
do not question or second guess

These hard, tiring and busy days won’t last.

Your ability to nurture, love, care and encourage is God-given.

break out of the mould you created for yourself with all the things you thought you knew

I hope you relinquish all expectations
you had of yourself for this next season and simply enjoy being alive.

Even if it fails, at least you know that you tried.

We all have a place in our minds where we wish to go, things we want to do and places we want to see but if I’ve learned anything, these last few years, is that you won’t get there if you don’t get moving.

It’s a beautiful day. The dog dreams. I breathe

Better to have a moment of awkwardness than to have a lifetime of regret.

But I see how you carry on.

I see how you carry others.

I see how you love,

I see how you pray.

I see you and I love what I see.

It’s a road not travelled at all.
A sad and painful place where the rivers
are made out of tears.
Very lonely. Very heartbreaking.

Very beautiful indeed.

My faith saved me.
It saves me still.

regret always comes too late.

You are more valuable than you know and you have so much more power than you realise

One hurt does not fix another

I want to be that brave person again

I’m a weary wife.

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MARRIED TO DEPRESSION

By / Dec 16, 2022

He sits with me, hollow and heavy

I can’t breath

I hide in the shadows

Hoping he won’t find me

Forgetting that he commands the shadows

My own ball and chain

I found myself myself married to depression

I climbed into his embrace and

found a home in the darkness

Not better, just worse

In sickness and sadness
Till death, will we part?

I curl on the bed

Knees to my chest

Keeping myself together

As he watches me fall apart

A spouse of sorrow

I’m a weary wife

A marriage of inconvenience

Based on loneliness and lies.