Woman, Just Write!
There is something about someone making an effort to gift you with something then you finding out hours later because life. Well, I found out earlier today that I won 100 POB thanks to a soul just looking to encourage people to write and probably writers to polish whatever magic their pens have.
For most writers, writing is just like a second language. They wield fluency just like they would a shield and they are the ones blocking the writers block. Reading for them in art and for this alone, they possess they power of tucking away crazy vocab all over their pieces.
But.
For some of us, writing is demanding and tedious most of the time. It involves digging into dark spaces and painful memories. It is wrapped around the exploration and untangling emotional chaos in a personalised reflective way.
Inspiration is scarce and life won't let me go hunting. To find me, it might haunt me as I sleep as some recurring nightmare. It might be a beautiful daydream. It might be triggered by the present or the past. Whichever form it chooses to inhabit me in, writing probes on my wounds like skilled surgeons and taps in my indescribable desires and wild passion.
Those who read my work are the unfortunate souls who get to keep up with the unpredictable sensitive tides that wash in based on where my ink is drawn.
Most of my pieces are gothic and emotionally disturbing. Dark pieces reign as I tend to lean there too often. Romanticized content is the only way I can dilute the melancholy associated with my other pieces without struggling hence the occassional dip in the forbidden hive for a taste of my unquenched longings.
Here is where it becomes a balm and healing begins. It is only through scribing that I have stripped naked in public to poke on my own wounds and still managed to walk away with my pride intact.
I get frustrated when I am in a place where I can't express myself. The continuous birth of words within me overwhelms my overthinking mind when some can't find a way out. When I am lost inside my head, everything gets foggy and I can't channel anything of value.
Then comes the panic attack before hitting the publishing button after I have fled some of the flooding words. Self doubt still envelopes my writer with the if what I have created is worthy of anyone's read. The undiagnosed paranoia might take over right after me sharing or after a while. It can't be helped.
Yet.
When poetry takes over I give in and let her rule me. Words spew from unceasing fountains and stanzas flow through my veins like blood. It is also here where profound reflective pieces sprout and surprisingly find home in other beings. I then become half the writer I claim to be and for once, I get to wield the magic that is writing!
**wambuku w.**
Crooked Smile
Dear Diary,
May is unfolding in a foggy morning outside. Laundry is smiling at me from one corner of my bedroom and I am being held hostage by my warm beddings. The smile on my face is rare nowadays but I am glad it found it's home this Sunday. My feet still have beef with me from yesterday over a walk that came before a family lunch with the brood.
It has been months.
Corona. My bruised wallet.
My dysfunctional mode.
The sun was out after days of heavy rainfall and the need to leave the house overwhelmed me in the morning and by eleven, we were out the door. It was almost three when we sat down for some glorified junk food and everyone was happy... including me.
Aside from soaking in the much needed sun, taking in serene environments that came with so much fresh air; I went all out on oozing good vibes for the day. Memories are better if they are happy ones and yesterday's feel like so.
In between the unexpected bursts of laughter thanks to my brood's bag of bad sibling rivalry jokes and the occasional complaints from the last two though, I wondered into the how fast dust reclaims our roads. I bet the mismatched potholes linking most of them have a clue as to what I am driving at.
The middle class struggles' version of our country. The high cost of living brought about by the current tyrant grappling for the house at the hill. The looming unstability contributing to the foreseeable political and tribalistic clashes in the upcoming elections. The broken system that makes every public service a nightmare. From the education system making home schooling a nightmare where I am currently living as it is reserved for a certain class to health care to public transportation.
Corruption has stained everything and bribes are how we run this whole goddamn country!
But then again the how the common man is fighting to regain control of his sovereign rights would flood in and hope for their future would/has slowly been getting reignited. My brood is a part of the incoming generation of unfiltered thoughts and they're forcefully trying to change our truth.
I admire them in silence.
The courage it requires to defy a political deity or question a ruling president, a church leader or the human gods that determine the lives of common men is profound. I was brought up by a generation that worshipped their tribes and never questioned their leaders about anything. They believed that the man above makes no mistakes in choosing the ass that sat on any form of throne and the head it carried. Most of my people were hardworking shallowly educated souls high on new democracy and saw no reason in doubting the power of a ballot box.
The greedy that had encountered a few more books and went to bed with the colonisers were and are still the ones who have aided in dismantling the efforts of those who were and still are patriots of this nation which would led to the decolonization of my entire people. Sigh.
Later on as we headed home, we passed by our local library and picked up a few things for our creative and journaling sides. I am not journaling traditionally currently but my brood is and as they indulged in fancy notebooks I settled for something that will be keeping my doodling company in my pursuit of having conversations with my inner child; a colouring book :)
I feel at peace while doodling though everything I am create is dark and personal and triggering. I thought that a colouring book will help me experiment with colours and be the day that I can transition to after letting a bit of the darkness out through doodling.
Laundry is calling, see you later :(
**wambuku w.**
Of Bittersweet Rants
Dear Diary,
I have peeked outside my bedroom window to ask May's morning fog for a break but my freezing feet tell me it might take a minute. The mind is scattered in small uncooperative groups and I am hoping writing can be the magnet that aligns everything.
The ears have discovered a vast world of good music. A remedy for those yearning to heal. The soul has always been one with rhythms and melodies. Vibrating to the core and with every poetic spill, my pains bleeds out. The pens have been prophesying the end of dark times and I can't wait for the weight of my decayed edges to shed itself off.
Cracks of light have been making their way to my darknesses' lair. Their rays have been dismantling my belief that I belong to the dark and now I am down on my knees praying to the keeper of my being that they manage to loosen the grip it has always had on me. Who knows if I can bottle the sun here and hug the moon over there for no one wants to live in a haunted house.
Blue smoke has been seen lifting off my cracked lips and once I had this twisted dream of turning myself into chimney in an attempt to drown the noise inside my head until I was reminded to let life love me. Anxiety would have a thousand reasons for why not now but I can feel my soul ready to be unburdened from whatever I have been running from.
Life has been known to dish out complex lessons that have seen me swallow my thorny pride a few times. But still I often stray and plan a few deadly comebacks before karma reminds my bitter self that that is her business. Continually learning how to be human without giving in to the animal I can be is a tedious task and among nature's most humbling ask.
I have existed waiting to live. I have paused my becoming. I have watched myself sink into chaos without a fight. I have craved to be wanted by people who wanted nothing to do with me. People who stirred love here then drastically exited. I have gotten lost in an imaginary forever. I have my share of flaws and lows.
I have been loved on sincerely. The kind of love that leaves one stomach in knots when its not filled with butterflies. I have gotten hooked on tea whilst I sprinkled whatever is left of my heart here and there like glitter.
Time has taught that the birthing process doesn't end for anyone me included. Fate would have me seated in the first row to witness each and every one of my rebirths. Each painful and heartbreaking but worthy to behold. Each forcing to wonder who my former self was while leaving a better version of me. Growth is the liberating even as it is uncomfortable.
I have dared to synchronised my essence with that of mother earth. I have allowed the wind to caress my invisible scars the same way it blows over land. The warmth of the sun has sat on my skin one too many times and the moon was shone on my disturbed self during the unending nights.
Send me a sign. I had whispered onto the blue heavens long before my tears found comfort in my pillows. How I am still here is still a mystery but I would blame evolution. And this overwhelming rush not to settle for miserable comfort and mediocre.
*~~background image from pixabay... edited with ps express.~~*
***wambuku w.***
Owning Dark Thoughts
Dusk gets here and the night folds
the day into nothingness
and before the crickets share their
opinions, the devil
has already claimed a dormant piece
of my agonising soul and
reinstated dark thoughts.
A replay of the words of men cut through
the skin to knife my ego
and the smoke drags out of the blunt
ready to annihilate my lungs and leave
me numb, for the mind has always found the need
of dilutable pain unnecessary
worthy of a quick fix and fast forward
to when I can let myself feel.
The constant leak of bittersweet
feels has me feeling like the poison ivy
is snaking around
my stupid little heart
and every fall is worse than the last
as I fight to answer gravity's romancing calls
And the spoils of watered down love
Squash the last seeds of hope
Wait to bloom with time.
The anachry in my headspace is
draining my rusted bones
and time won't allow my perfectionist
breathe so I have been procrastinating, for I
keep forgetting the clock hands have never
relinquished their pace
for any man, rich or poor
and I can't help but weep for those who
rely on my unstable self
to sail through the high seas of life
like a lighthouse does for sailors.
Before the sun comes around, I
might have gone to the other side of my
globe only to return home
with more wounds
from a war no one other me gets to
see or attend where I watch me combat myself
all in an attempt to suppress
the parts of myself I feel apologetic about.
**pinterest.* https://pin.it/3aCrkQV
**wambuku w.**
Reminiscent Midnight Love
This freewrite can be whatever the reader in you sees fit. I have been denied access to my poetic side by so many excuses so when this started flowing, I was whisked away to a place a part of me calls home. Share your thoughts :)
I could say anything about anything
It would be to confess about the
Crippling audacity of her memories
Clinging on my broken heart
The way that disarming curve that is her smile
Creeps on my loneliest thoughts
I would admit that a wishful tide has tried
To sweep away her footprints
From my shoreline
And how time has attempted to erase
Everything I feel
The yearning. The longing. The craving.
Yet I find myself holding on
To this reminiscent midnight love.
I would voice indescribable desires
Bent on leaving my all spiralling
Talk of the days I hoped that this tongue
Would find itself lost in her shrines
Of how the scent of her caramel skin
Still lingers in the air that I breath
Shamelessly express how her soft lips burned down mine
And how her feathery skin once shared secrets
With my lost excited fingers
Saying what needs to be said between lustful lovers
Before her throat fought to contain her submissive cries
Giving in. Unable to hide. Surrendering.
I would also acknowledge
How I have been willingly bewitched
By the sensation of her touch
Blazing beneath my untamed wildness
To how she spoon-fed me love
With her spellbinding eyes
Or the how her whispers left me at the edge of a cliff
Even while she was right there with me
The night witnessed how I worshipped her in return
In my every one of my dreams
Prior to sharing how my bones
Caved in to the sound of her teasing laughter
Reverberating wild and free
Just as time was fishing
For my cold heart from the deeps
To etch her name on it
Leaving me smitten. Shockingly taken.
*image taken from Pinterest edited a bit for this post.*
**wambuku w.**
Breath Woman!
Dear Diary,
The weight of my unborn words is currently suffocating my constant escapism from writing. This ink on your screen has requested to be the balm for my open wounds in an attempt to mitigate their bleeding pain. Speak! These pens keep saying. And speak this way I must as my tongue rarely moves when I am in pain.
The day is aging too fast and the red earth is wet from intaking the sky's tears all night long but the morning fog has refused to hand in the day to the sun. Grey days can be full of melancholy and unexplainable fatigue.
For the longest time, I have flirted with anxiety. I have wasted my time arguing with people who believed in their own lies. I have shamefully hidden the scars that have made me who I am in order to fit in spaces unworthy of my energy. I have deserted my pens and suppressed whatever it is that I can create.
My flaws have often surfaced. Like how I keep losing my temper over my inability to contain my emotions like they should be contained while wondering if they should be indeed contained. Ain't there emotional liberty or something?
I am asking because I am wired to feel it all.
The rage. The passion. The love. The hate.
Every one of the burns like how emblers of hell would ravage the human world.
I shape-shift and allow madness to steer my moods then I sacrifice myself at a waiting altar and watch helplessly as societal vultures tear me apart. They poke on my soft edges and ask why I gotta be different really but aren't misfits meant to stand out?
It might be a while before I regroup but when I do, I swear I have always felt whatever little defiance left within me stretching to sync my core back to my default frequency. My inner man always has this or that way of convincing me to go back home and reconnect with myself.
Her echo is what wakes me from my dark slumber as she sings *pay homage to your magic and once again you rise above. You can always start by taking in a breath. Breath woman, breath!* from the other side of the valley.
And as turbulent seas within seek to find calm, healing rolls in in waves. I might be in good spirits this minute but I am also known to be sinking the next. You see, courage has never really accepted the invite to stay so boldness can only do sprints here not marathons. Pace then becomes an art.
This has been my routine for a while. It has been my way of life. But if it were to change, I'd add on a self care process I read somewhere online.
~Remove thy shoes and stand on bare earth.
~Allow mother earth to take in whatever negative vibes you got going on.
~Clear your headspace for meditation and dive deep within.
~Find your center and balance.
~Listen to everything you are telling you.
~Revise it. Life is all about learning, unlearning and relearning.
~Art is the only thing you need to heal that can be found outside of you.
~Lift your chest. Drop your shoulders and breath.
Though my inner critic can be found reminding me that I don't really take advice and neither do I really take care of myself; My need for better says watch this I think that I might prove her wrong :)
**wambuku w.**
Mother's Day Blues
I typed this two days ago and it has been sitting in my drafts as I tried to bring myself into sharing it.
*Flashback!*
I am a thirteen year old skinny looking tomboy. Mischievous and but also exceling in school. My obsession with reading has contributed loads to my vocabulary making English a favourite. Because of this, recently I earned the most expensive I have ever owned and right away gifted it to her.
She adjusts something as I gawk on her through the mirror and turns around to confirm if I approve of some official look. It is her first day back to work this week and she is so excited about the whole thing.
I nod. She smiles. Painfully.
If I was being asked, something more needs about that recurring swelling on her left breast but her defiance can have anyone fooled that she is fit to return to work but not me though as that pain must've stolen her usual glow.
Her sunk dancing eyes quickly drop to her feet after my confirmation and crawl up her own body as if she is checking if I or the mirror hanging on her bedroom wall missed something. I giggle and ask if she doesn't trust my eyes. She flashes a mocking smile then goes back to her business.
I laugh out loud. And say how hurt I am.
But we both were present when I begged my optician not to adorn my eyes with *those magnifying things that made my eyeballs seem more like golf balls* he was suggesting I start wearing. How he *expected* me to show up in school in those things was what my 'coolness' found amusing! I mean, primary school children can be mean little rascals and I wasn't looking to cave into their bullish comments. From that last visit, she lovingly calls me a bat.
What about the mirror? I tease while shaking off my short-sightedness challenges.
The mirror is and has always been full of deceit my child. Her voice forces my face to face hers for a second before hers drop to admire the gift resting on her wrist. Lost in her own thoughts, she addresses me.
This is your first gift to me and I intend on cherishing it for a while. I filter how proud she is by her breaking voice.
But mama, I got that watch because you have made unimaginable sacrifices for me and my siblings to get an education. She drops a sincere smile and closes our gap with a hug. And as she smells better than the earth after the rain and the desire to cling to her overwhelms me.
*Present...*
Mother's day has always had this bitter aftertaste. When May comes around now, it drags mixed feelings here with it. The joy of seeing my own brood appreciating my existence and the sadness of understanding a little more that I will never share my motherhood with her push and pull.
I sat alone in my bedroom after receiving the above rose and meditated on her. I crave for her presence more than anything. Her smile had some reassuring magic and her energy oozed of her indescribable strength. Mama was a rock and soft at the same time.
Her love was unquestionable. She gave it all.
She was my first home and my everlasting truth. My shield. She fought for me long before there was a voice of my own. It continued even after I got it still. She was my teacher. She taught me the ways of life. She shouted at me with love. Forgave me even more.
Who would I be without her unconditional love as a foundation? What am I without her influence on my life? It is interesting how I fall back on her many advices about how to tackle life. How even though she is gone forever, she is stuck here for life!
**wambuku w.**
Checking On Myself
Dear Diary,
The strings that play my soul when negative vibes are in control are sitting in a lonely corner. Today, peace is sitting with me. We have been engaging in these short interactions but I know it will be impactful. A smile will find my face because of this. It shall stretch the edges of my stiff lips and leave a happy curve.
The sun still rose in the East as it always does and will disappear in the West later today. It has sat high in the blue sky and reigned like the daylight king it is. The ice queen in me has her claws falling on her throbbing chest in confusion as its warmth found its way to my cold bones. It has been poisoning everything while turning this into one of those beautiful random days. The memorable kind.
Love and light have been witnessing it all. Embodied like a single sparkling star stirring the night sky with millions of us making wishes upon it. Similar to how groom comes to watch as I settle for miserable comfort and mediocre. But today it is love that is overseeing everything especially these life changing decisions that are continually being made!
The wind has been speaking to me in a hushed familiar voice. It has been reminding me that I belong to those who dare stay here. The ones who have chosen to house this soul in whatever functional relationships that are remaining. It also added that I don't have to fight everything based on my scars as some battles require reassessing one's current wounds.
Then there is this intoxicating crave for what I can't have. A desire to knock on a forbidden door asking for some loving. The urge to poke on a sleeping lioness to ask if I can feed off her cubs milk. Guess you can say one can never control the matters of the heart. How I wish I can though.
Hope says I should pursue what has been paused. Work on expediting the reignition of the ambitious bits in me and cure that debts disease. There are all sorts of artistic seeds here that could be life changing. How I hope that I can get lost in my own growth and whatever change it comes with. And with change, healing will definitely be welcomed to stay.
Time heals everything I hear. Yet the reflection of my brokenness has me wondering how such mess can ever be made whole again. But still... There is this search for timeless yarns to stitch together the scattered debris of self just like the Japanese do with their broken pots in their *Kintsugi* tradition. Music has been helpful in bridging me back to a place of surrender as I shift in between my spiritual realms.
I have been worried a lot. Will this heart heal itself or not? If not, will love ever call it a home again? Will this body ever have enough rest? Will this life ever extend a break to this wornout soul? Will I be forgiven for these sins that I leave unchecked and wish a different tongue repents on behalf of mine? Show me where sanity draws a line.
I fear that there is a day that I will give in to my demons and their demands but that day is not today. Tonight the moon will drag me away from the echos of these imprisoned voices in my head. It's sliver glow ought to calm my chaotic thoughts just like black tea does. It has to massage my trashed ego and help magnify my dwindling sense of being.
There is a sea of possibilities here then. A path to reclaim my experiences with trauma as the stories that run through my body and colour the blood in my viens. An opportunity to repaint the accumalated life lessons as guidelines for those following closely on my footsteps and anyone else who assumes that they deal with customised darkness alone!
**wambuku w.**
Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful
Dear Diary,
Silence has fallen on my pens for two weeks. My ink has been drying up or regrouping itself from the delicate corners of my oftenly bleeding heart. I have seen all sorts of dawns that transitioned to different sort of days. There has been the ones that the fog cleared as soon as the morning sun yellowed the sky bright and others that have seen the mist hover over my being till dusk.
Emotional triggers have showed up in undistinguishable forms. Random acts from anyone attached to my core have seen me spiral in the dark for days. Opportunity to walk away keeps washing up on my shores but I keep finding myself dragging my soul back to the deep. Healing has never been easy for me. Forgiving myself is even harder. Which in return makes self love a task at times.
The moon has made promises as the sun has risen to dissolve them. Long nights have held me close and rocked me as I broke into a million pieces. My frozen tears have basked on the vastness of my cheeks down to my neck. The cold midnight wind has whispered sweet nothings. And my melanined skin has dearly paid the hefty price of containing the uncertainties of it all.
Childhood memories are sneaking up on me. Nightmares of haunted graves and murky deadly rivers are back. The toxicity I grew up in. The abuse I am yet to talk about has been resurfacing. This is because every attempt to find myself has me digging shallow burial sites and confronting the not so dead.
But still I keep looking for light. Still try to work on shedding some if not all the weight that keeps pulling me under. I hope to conquer my chaotic thoughts while I am at it as I tame these crippling fears and dilute this seasonal bitterness once and for all.
Probably I will then have the ability to channel my essence to anyone willing to connect or can at least relate to it and somehow irrigate my roots with some much needed kindness.
To find my center and balance, I am speaking kindly to my inner child. I am admitting my mistakes and reassuring her that I got this. I am reconnecting myself with a woman who saw it fit to gift me life. Her magic and flow of energy synchronised with my drifting focus will help ground me for my own healing.
Cooking is one of the ways how and since she taught me how to, my small kitchen has been my way back to her. This might be odd for some but her presence has been felt revitalising my frame. Art (sketching and doodling) plus dancing (something I learned from my favourite girl too) are responsible helping me relax.
I have been inviting colours here to see if soon time will turn constant blues and grey moments into a rainbow. One that will help me see the rods of the cage I am in or help me free myself for an exploration beyond where my will to strive for better is detained.
This is my way of stepping out of the comfort zone. It's an act of rebelliousness on what has been a stale state of the known. Walking into the unknown anticipating to feel the sun and adjust to the blinding lights. Hoping finally embrace the act of living over merely existing while also trying to understand that I have to continuously fight to be in this positive headspace.
And the fight is with no one else than my inner man and her obnoxious expectations plus her internalised fear. This is and has been my only wish!
***wambuku w.***
Of Long Nights
The night seeps
through the cracks of my mother's
hut and the tin lamp light
dances with the cold breeze
as my fear peers into the blackened yard
to find the monsters
stuck harmoniously in my head.
Crickets sing collectively
when darkness sweeps the earth
and scattered in the wind
are floating fireflies
reminding me that I am a moonchild
regardless of the blood
dangling from the tips of my hands.
The mind races
as does the blood pump in my chest
unresolved matters
are attempting to resurface
and the cuts under my sleeves
insidiously wish to voice a few dark things
but the soul remains grave silent.
The devil asks
for one final chance and I
gladly follow him to hell
braving every fall
that is slowly replaced by a wall
blocking light from my drained spirit
before he settles for just a dance.
I stand on
the ashes of everything I dreamed of
and cry myself a river
unclenching the fists that have
defended this bruised ego
from the wrath of my bloody altars
praying for dawn to get here sooner.
_____________________________________
This is for you to interpret. However it sits with your soul. I think everything in me is looking for it's rightful place and dark thoughts are no exception. Poetry is a warcry at times for me. It is the rhythmic flow that unburdens my emotional baggage and strips me back to nakedness.
**wambuku w.**
The Recent Rite of Passage #TheAftermath
This post stems from the disorientation I have undergone for ten days after the recent rite of passage for my youngest. https://read.cash/@Blackween/the-recent-rite-of-passage-theaftermath-dfaadfad
After half heartedly taking my fourteen year old son through an old practice to please our ancestors, yesterday, he was brought back home. It had been ten days of nothing but unexplainable fatigue. I am sure I felt like there were cutting something from my body too.
I keep saying that parenting ones young is like having a phantom umbilical cord dangling in the air acting like a forever link wherever they go. This translates into feeling their pain or at least catching the uneasiness of its effect on them.
The day yesterday started early as at 9am, I was already in the cooking his favourite meal, hoping and wishing that the aroma of my wet chicken pilau and some deep fried potato wedges would remind him of home. Of love. Of anything less traumatising than the ordeal he has underwent.
When he got home, he dropped his bathing bucket at the door and ran into my arms. He reminded me that I was missed and how much I am loved. What broke my heart is how it was quickly followed by a firm, '*Mama, I didn't cry one bit. It was painful but I didn't cry*' yet I somehow instinctively could hear his bones singing gloriously for finding themselves in my embrace.
I wanted to say that it was okay to cry and that I myself might have secretly done so over it but his eldest brother's response swept in fast and shadowed mine. *I am proud to hear you didn't cry little brother.* As my jaws flung wide open with my tongue burning to free a disappointed *what do you think you are portraying as his elder brother*, my mind sort of dashed back in December 2014 when he himself underwent it too.
They must've been fed that recycled myth that real men have zero vulnerability emissions. That beards replace a man's tears and sensitivity. So much for transitioning boys into men! Sigh. I am intend on changing those ridiculous narratives as we go but it feels good to acknowledge these among the most negative vibes of practicing an ancient practice without properly following its operational mechanisms.
Long ago, the practice involved the older men guiding a generation of young boys from their mothers huts and smoky kitchens down to the rivers before dawn. It was there experienced hands and tools of trade transitioned them into untrained warriors. For them, it was the beginning of handling spears and shields. Hunting. War. Courtship.
It was also a cleansed pass for them to sit in the shadows of any elders' sitting and have the opportunity to learn a skill or two. Before they were cut, this was considered a taboo. Family oriented souls were seen mingling with middle aged men with small families hoping to catch a glimpse into a married life.
There was a fickle balance between patriarchal domineering and a sacred respect for women then. This meant that women handled FGM -Female Genital Mutilation- matters and the men concentrated on the circumcision of the boys.
Back then the recently initiated folks were the entire society's responsibility. We have always believed a child belongs to the village not only to the woman who bears the cave he emerged from. Everyone chipped in. The medicine man and woman. The elderly. The energetic lot. They contributed wholly in moulding this future member of their community.
Nowadays. Faith based organisations replaced the rivers young boys were taken to for the rite of passage. The society dissolved into religious doctrines and obnoxious expectations. The medicine man and woman disappeared soon after colonialism. And so did the community spirit that helped nurture the incoming generation.
The child was returned to the woman who birthed him or her. And a process that usually began since as early as twelve and stretched into the early twenties was compressed into ten to fourteen days at a makeshift seasonal facility incapable of bridging the gap.
With all that in mind, how it is that we as a people of this certain tribe still expect the exact results like our forefathers is what I never wrapped my head around! I mean... other than the clear inconsistencies in these two practices, the different eras is something to think about. But how am I to change years of empowering tribalistic bullies as we continually confuse a reasoning mind with a carved D?
*wambuku w.*
Staying Grounded
Dear Diary,
The sun is slowly dissolving the morning cold and the day looks like it will be warmer than yesterday. A dark cloud has been residing here temporarily and my mind is scattered. This piece is an attempt at channeling it productively.
I have seen better days but I am currently banking on these tough times to help me with ideas on how to tackle the coming ones. From my emotional state to the shallows of my pockets, I am always fighting the temptation to just give up and walk away. Like forget better, strew every dream there is and settle for whatever every other unambitious person does.
But. The nature of my curious effortlessly overwhelms that thought the instant it hits my mind. The whole idea of passing out on an opportunity to live a fulfilled life mocks me in the back of my head. A try at it wouldn't hurt I guess.
The issue has never been lacking the desire for better or the will to work for it, it has always been this mist of self doubt hovering over this spirit. The audacity to create then hate one's creation. Immense procrastination. This annoying habit of questioning sound decisions thanks to overthinking. Did I say procrastination? Also. Perfectionism and consistency won't coexist here so even the act of polishing whatever skills there are proves to be tedious.
Years ago, I trudged through my days piling and concealing pain. I devoured whatever it threw at my feet in a bid to fill the emptiness overtaking my sacred. My thinking was rigged and I can't express the certainty of how I believed I deserved misery.
Sitting in that pain for years and letting in a bit of light especially the last three years, has seen some unexpected changes happening. It was never an option for me to search for any solutions inwardly at the beginning because I was afraid of dealing with any pain. Years of sneaking in and out of painful spaces has slowly liquidated my own and intertwined the remaining with my core.
This in return is helping me unpack in slow motion. I am now dealing with the triggers and the what makes them triggers. I am acknowledging my inner child for holding down the hill as I work on bring it down. I have discovered beautiful things about who I am as a person and what I can handle as a soul. I have caressed a few of my scars with utmost respect for my strength.
That only means there is hope. And hope means adding on the work. It means learning to unlearn what is unhealthy and learning and relearning what is compatible with my energy. It is the constant search for light and tending to my dying roots. This is the behind the scenes of my agonising rebirth. My only chance at ending the act of shape-shifting to survive!
**wambuku w.**
Rain's Magic
Listen in, to the hum
Of the soft winds
Sweeping across barren land
Carrying rain
Like a secret that belongs
To the mountain tops.
The fire crackles softly
As her embers
Choose to raise to meet their
Death mid air.
Thunders roar madly
At the sight of the tearing skies
In an attempt
To reclaim their voice
Before lightning strikes.
The earth drinks in
A wet silence
Taking in the rhythmic pounding
And the weight of
Hurried panicked feet
Rushing home.
Boots fight the mud
As soaked fabrics cling onto
The drenched skin
Drawing heat from within.
Tired bones seek rest
Between warm cozy bedclothes
Whilst the beat
Tapping musically on the roof
Soothes a fatigued soul.
**wambuku w.**
Reoccurring Daydream
Usually when the sun goes down
And darkness can be seen blanketing
The earth and her inhabitants
I sit by my bedroom window
Watching the silver shine conquer the yonder
As the starry sparkle
Join in the nightly sky worship
And I can't help
Getting consumed by thoughts of you
While being haunted
By that disarming smile of yours.
This skin of mine tingles
Like it has a mind of its own
Itching to feel your fingers caressing
Every inch of where it spreads
The taste of delicate your lips
Can be traced lingering on my burning cheeks
I am stuck in a wild fantasy
Secretly wishing I could be close to you
And live the wonder
That is exploring your hidden layers.
I sit there with my empty arms
Longing and yearning
That yours can bring the healing
Everything in me suspects they hold
My enchanted soul keeps reaching
From the depths of my unknown
For your light to find whats left
Of my bothered smitten self
And seal this wedge between us
As there is more to this
Reoccurring daydream.
**wambuku w.**
Wholesomeness Amidst Pain
Dear Diary,
The skies are tearing softly to in an attempt to cleanse my side of the world. There is quiet here. And that says a lot. It is never quite here. The present brood are sleeping away their tiredness in the next room and the youngest is away to face the knife tonight.
To be a man they say. He must pay homage to his forefathers, they insist. And being that I have to let them, I did. But. There might be quite but calm is unheard of here.
*~~Partially because...~~*
The mother in me is bleeding in silence. She is doing her best to divert her attention from what her child is going through as we speak. This is the part of her own traditions that she hates secretly. Her identity has refused to identify the why it must be done.
And as she is fully aware that there is literally nothing she can pull off for tonight to go down differently, her soul will be in intercession for the next few days. And this right here, might end up being the longest of the coming nights. He has never left home.
Calm could also have been dissolved by the excitement bouncing off my energy today. Aside from the significance of what my boy is going through being an achievement I can proudly claim *as an African mother*, today was the most beautiful lesson in a while and I am so humbled by it all.
So yes, tonight I am dancing with some bittersweet moods. There is this indescribable pain humming in the background reaching out for the same hand this uncontainable warmth wants to cuddle. Its sad that I have to run back and forth between them both.
But.
*~~These are my confessions...~~*
The most positive effect the act of sliding in and out of a depressive state has one me is this uncontrollable way of performing a cleansing ritual whereas I am relieved of my expectations. These grey tides rock my shores and drag each and every one of them back to the deep. There they are stripped from me by my inner man while reminding me that no one owes me shit. This leaves me vulnerable to whatever disappointment life can slingshoot my way.
Asking for help is this uncomfortable task that is always met by resistance. You are allowed to call it pride but before you do you should also know that I have been denied help often enough to make admitting the need to helped strenuous. The tongue quickly acquires weight and the fingers suddenly grow fat. Words therefore refuse to leave my constricted throat and the keyboard gathers dust as it waits for the fingers to go on a diet.
Managing to then ask and get help with zero expectations is an otherworldly bliss. It is embodies the lesson that humanity has always been choice regardless. Today was made whole and possible because another soul decided to humanize mine. And that for me is everything.
*~~Beaming and revitalised...~~*
So. Even as a piece of my own is being shred, I am choosing to recognise the good energy hovering over my spirit right now for my soul's safe keeping. If you can, do send some more warmth and light this way. I am ready... *opens arms!*
**wambuku w.**
Rite of Passage For My Youngest
I am holding this brochure from a locally well-known faith based organisation asking me to give them $100 and my fourteen year old son accompanied with a few essentials for two weeks and they are promising to bring him back as a man.
Honestly, I digress.
I mean who can turn a young boy into a man within two weeks of him getting circumcised and systematically covering ten largely irrelevant topics that have nothing to do with him as a man but here we are.
Why do it then you might wonder.
In Africa, majority of communities have been practicing the oldest planned surgical procedure for eons. What physician Remondino suggested began as a less severe form of emasculating a captured enemy -over castration- in his 1891 work, '*History of Circumcision*' would become among our traditions as the Bantu people. The famous Maasais are among those who embraced circumcision as a rite of passage too. This was after adopting the culture from the travelling Jews and Muslims. Ancient Egyptians and the Semites were the first cultures to practice the procedure but they too practiced it mainly on religious grounds.
Many people of the African origin especially the Sub-Saharan region made this adopted way of life a crucial part of their traditions as a young boy exits childhood to manhood. This usually takes place when they are thirteen to sixteen or when they are done with primary school.
If it was the early days, I am meant to build him a 'house' next to mine in the homestead. He wouldn't be allowed back in my house for any reason other than food. He would be being cared for by the person specifically chosen to take him to the river. That is where young warriors were made in my day.
But.
Rivers dried up and those that didn't were replaced by organisations like the one asking to turn my child into a man. But because traditions are still in play, he can't afford to visit the nearest health facility and come back home. We (my bantu folks) believe that it is a taboo for me as his mother to see him in that state until he heals his wounds. He ain't allowed to be around his sister either.
In the spirit of not defying my ancestors, I have to agree to what the brochure says.
He is to be delivered to the facility by his older brother and a family friend on Saturday at 2pm then left there for two weeks as he and boys his age are 'transformed into men.' As a mother, I don't like it one bit but as a woman who has grown up in this part of the world, I get why it is necessary.
Believe or not, somehow, I am helping safeguard his self-confidence and esteem for his future. Here, any uncircumcised man will tell you that living in fear is real. They will tell you how hard it is for anyone to go through high school. Young souls are bullied and subjected to nonsensical humiliation due to being disgraded. Or seen as less of a 'man'. Here, a man who didn't face the knife is coward and the treatment he gets especially from the same women he's to choose a wife from, is the worst.
We have put so much relevance in shedding the foreskin of a male genitalia that I don't think it serves the same purpose our ancestors had in mind anymore.
But I will still gladly cough up the hundred dollars and add close to fifty more to get him what he requires for those two weeks and stitch a fake smile on my face as I watch him go be that man they are promising then I will go back home and wait for my child because he will still be my child when he returns. Wish me luck!
***wambuku w.***
Cold Daydreams & Warm Nightmares
If, before the morning fog lifted
We found each other
In each other's arms, the sun would
Bear witness to the intensity
Your unfiltered love reawakened
Here; this consuming fire that keeps
Leaking from my forgotten shrines
Comes fueled by a passion so divine
It has chosen to be caged
Only to be freed onto your burning skin.
There would be some tender soft kisses
In between the shy yearning looks, looking
To strike a balance
Amidst the raging desires within
Your seductive whispers of sweet nothings
Would secretly aid
My inability to contain the storm
Trailing your feathery touch
Which would be reducing me to ashes
As your fingers try to interpret some pretty
Familiar feels to my conquered self
Disregarding my hands as they get lost
In the ocean that you are.
Would you let me carry you
To foreign spaces with my drunk caresses
Let this tongue explore you
And what you hold dearest
Just like wind roaming
Mother earth; with these willing lips
I can rock your curved hips
In an attempt to feed this hunger
That constantly sprouts from my enchanted
Broken essence; guide me far away
From these turbulent seas
And diminish the unfolding
Teasing and unceasing
Cold daydreams and warm nightmares.
**wambuku w.**
Poetry Has Accepted Me Back :D
For months now, I haven't been able to write poetry. These two pieces though imperfect and probably not properly edited are my guide back to my world. Please take these two as they are... :)
*The Forbidden Fruit*
I have held you close for a while
The glow of your smile
Has been stuck on my tormented mind
Are you still my find?
You brownskin girl
I wonder
Or do you belong to the soul
Who currently holds your hand
Along this life's busy streets?
The ghosts of you
Deliberately haunt my loneliest nights
I have these never-ending hallucinations
Of me, dying to taste your full lips
I stretch to find the comfort
Your delicate arms keeps
Only to score the cold sheets
Waiting on the other edge of my bed.
The sound of your voice
Echos from the depths of my heart
I can still hear the ripples of your whispers
Dismantling everything I know
While carrying me through distant dawns
Is it wild
That I want you for myself
Even though you are a forbidden fruit?
*************************************************
*UnTitLeD*
There is a secret yearning buried deep
One that carefully sneaks into the light
Once in a while
To remind my reluctant bones
That I am alive.
It willingly follows
The light tucked behind her sad beautiful eyes
As they effortlessly draw my fears
From the dungeons of my past experiences
Like it can cleanse their transgressions.
It eyes her caramel skin
Calling on these desires sealed within
I have felt my itching fingers crave
To feed on her tenderness
Like the morning sun drinking up the dew.
**wambuku w.**
UnTitLeD RanTs
Dear Diary,
It is past 11 am. The brood is snoring away in the next room thanks to sleeping at 3 in the morning. As usual. The environment is wide awake after a night of restricted movements. Yes. Madam Rona is doing her third round on this edge of the black soil. Men are felling like the trees they have continually preyed on. The rich might have overtaken the health sector but the grim reaper seems unimpressed so he's taking enough of them too.
A slice of chapati dangles from my left hand as my right index delivers this to you. Chapatis are our form of wheat addiction. Every community has one, this is ours.
I am readjusting to sanity after an encounter left my ego badly bruised this morning. Either that or some spaces in discord are as toxic as hell. *Who said we are all whales with an expanded knowledge on the chain and everything in between?*
My mind can easily cook up unworthy stanzas. It can create reflective pieces. I can even come up with a moving story from any form of art if I want. And with art I mean anything from a painting to a piece of music. Artists tend to that. What I can't do is talk tech unless I read excessively on a subject. Now imagine asking a bunch of strangers about something you are looking to learn only to have yourself dissected in a number of humiliating or humorous ways *(considering which side you are on)*.
Because I get my place, I quietly left the whales to their space. I have first-hand experience on how one can be dragged from the steemchat and I have learnt to protect my energy from brutes. You can keep your discord but with that sort of attitude, on boarding an equally interested crowd will be heard. But what do I know?
The skeletons of my life lay here. The truth you could hold against me threatens to spill with every I page fill. But where do I go? When night chases the light away and we must return to living behind closed doors, emotional warfare grabs such opportunities to drag my worst to the surface.
Emotional spirits are to be questioned. And I remain an emotional being.
**wambuku w.**
In Here
Dear Diary,
April is here. Or it will be in a few hours. The last three months have been engulfed by an emotional fog that won't be bothered to fade away as expected. Life or fate has dragged me through some unfavourable suitations and my soul has been grinded to whatever comes after dust. Tears have found my pillows as I try to bury my face over and over again. The nights must have stolen the days' time and I need to empty this hold.
I heard a voice asking me how long as I freed a muted wail. How long I intend to stifle it and its asks. Salty pain might love the feel of my cheeks but the wreck it has caused in here will be someone else's mess to study and scrape off the floor if they want me. *But who would?* Another voice quickly follows. Before anger sweeps my being over my inner man, I take a second.
I don't know why I keep finding myself here. I mean stuck in here with this darkness and emptiness. Not sure why I choose mediocre either. Or the guilt. Or the shame. Especially the shame. But I too don't think anyone wants to be stuck in here with me. I who keeps fighting what good the earth and her nourishing energy sends my way only for me to be a caretaker of some broken souls while disregarding my broken one in the process.
Why I lean towards fixating on what I know too well I can never fix is still a mystery to me. I mean why obsess over what you can't resolve, change or possess? Crazy huh? That's me. Riding on the back left of the overthinkers bus. Tackling every single thought like I would day to day tasks. I ignore everything there is in my present and vow to die in the battle of getting answers. Then I prolong the fight for more answers on the answers at hand. Are we there yet? I keep asking. Never really knowing the destination though.
The trees wave and wave like Mwalim says but nothing in me celebrates their arms making such an effort. The birds sing but my headspace has no room for natures melodies. The wind whispers some good things too but my ears live for the lies I have been fed. I have wondered who would dare come find me but I don't want to be found also. Is there a way of letting in the light without necessary needing it? Is there a way of loving without actually auctioning this broken self?
And that is what is in here.
Speaking in Tongues
Dear Diary,
The sun has been showing off and the dust is making everything wear her clingy earthy coat. From the books sitting at the corner of this room to the long eyelashes roaming out there. The mind is unsettled but the soul somehow has remained unbothered. It is a new place to find self. An odd place. Odd in a goodish way.
Time has slowly eaten away three months and a crucial piece of my soul found its way here yesterday. Sleep found a sincere smile plastered on my being. Rare sight. But an extra pair of trusted ears is always a mood.
I don't get why it is taking time but it is. The healing that is.
Personally. I'd like it to be done.
For poetry to return.
For emotional stability to get here fast.
For her much needed stay to this time last.
Then. I experience something and layers of what comes after the trigger unfold and drag me back to the ocean floor. Once there, I have to fight the same disheartening voices before the light finds me.
Before it does find me though, I indulge in gesticulating what can't scribbled and peddled for a few dollars on the chain or can't be expressed any other way. I sometimes laugh it out uproariously hoping to tuck away some of my pain as I free it from this spirit.
I fabricate the idea of happiness until a smile finds its way to my stony stoned face. I slow dance with trauma. I allow her to do retakes from my past experiences and I nod disgustedly as my inner critic takes me apart. Talk about irrigating inner wars and fueling self hate.
But I have also enjoyed the daily delicacies of being here and present. The little magical moments that filters out most of the pain thrown at me.
The right amount of the morning sun kissing my cold cheeks.
These books finding every tap that is leaks.
Tears finally drying up.
The wind soothing my sweating scalp.
My hair dancing to its breezy tap.
The healing magic that is warm hugs.
Ears that never whispered to the tongue how I nag.
Patient souls who've afforded my demons time.
Brave ones who want to stay until they are tame.
They say love can live here just like loathe.
The beauty is in the art of letting go.
Then boom, light.
The trick now is manning how many times I find myself on the ocean floor. Who or what is capable of pulling me under. The how long I stay sunken at any given time. Any trigger that can result in my drowning while in that state. Everything digested by an overthinker. Everything.
And this my virtual friends is all in search of the light. All in the hope of walking with light. Sigh. Signed, someone looking to outgrow the dark.
**wambuku w.**
The Body's Secrets
Dear Diary,
The night embraces the moonless dim in a quite way. I should be sleeping but I am fighting to suspend my ego and let my writer find her light. My fingers are playing pens as the soul tries to adjust to a less rigid mode. The voices in my head are unifying themselves into a singular reflective tone and their echos can be heard bouncing back as clear words. Possible sentences.
T (my psychiatrist) says I have been and still am tense. This has got me thinking of getting myself a massage. Of pampering myself. Of finally being able to enjoy the tranquility that such places comes with. But then again. Doesn't that involve strange spaces with customised strangers who come with ready knuckles that knead tension out of you? Doesn't it also involve nudity? My sharing this doubtful skin with the earlier mentioned knuckles?
The smooth stones laid in a perfect line on the backs of people who have not only braved the spas and the masseurs but have gone the extra mile of taking photos of their 'naked hides' flooding Google images are appealing but...
This body is mine. It is also the unfortunate vault to my pain. It has been mine alone for a while now. That decision had been made to heal some invisible wounds but then time just flew by. I trace the visible scars on the nights I can't sleep to remind myself why I deserve to. I reminisce on the naivety it took to have them curved here. The hopeful wishing of encountering change while turning a blind eye right at what needed to be changed. When the memories drag in the neglected pain, I shut down.
How am I then supposed to enjoy strange hands unearthing the hidden vestiges of a decade long abuse?
Blame it on this self awareness journey. In my finding myself, I think I have completely forgotten myself. The delicate parts. The sauce of my essence. I have unremembered to be comfortable here. And where would I even go if I become a misfit in my own house? In my own garden?
A few wise birds keep singing that I be myself as everyone else is taken. I hear them but my inner critic long brainwashed me. If only these words can move in with my mind. My soul even. Perhaps I might quit being this person. The person who knows what is right but still continues to insist on straying from truth and to later overwhelm themselves emotionally.
You should see me trying to validate these trauma responses. Sigh. I defend myself for overly taking care of the rest of my circle then completely forgetting I exist. I overlap my appropriate NOs with some quick Yeses to almost everything even when I am aware the best answer should be NO. My boundaries blur. One's dignity or pride flies out a window. And that stamps on one's self preservation and one becomes an emotional slave.
Currently, I am working on how to reoccupy my space boldly. To explore beyond the horizons of my comfort. If I ever embody the act of not looking for past in my future, I would be over the moon. That equates to freedom to me. I am finding me... Speaking of finding myself, I should allow rest to consume my tired being. Talk soon ♡
**wambuku w.**
Monday's Dark Sermon
Dear Diary,
I am trying to come up with a way to break the ice. Trying to let myself slither into a better place to share what I will. It is been days I know but healing for me is not smooth. I can go for days without feeling the need to share (read either talking or writing) and oftentimes that is when darkness reigns here.
The only way out is to leave my self-imposed prison and go out for some human interaction. More like I would for some much needed groceries. My bedroom doubles as my workstation and comfort zone aside from the usual benefits of having one. This has helped the returning anxiety and paranoia cultivate a safe space for fear to inhabit. For it to rehouse past demons.
The season ain't mine. It hasn't been for the last six months. I keep losing. Falling. Failing. Reengaging pain even though she has this habit of leaving me naked at the altar. And because of the same pain... I have done some pretty stupid things. Things I regret and at times hate myself for. Things that have left my vulnerable edge bare for constant emotional attacks and triggers.
This in return has grinded my spirit. It has seen my cagey self working round the clock to erect some much needed walls and reset the boundaries. But not without hastily making a few more bad decisions. Unnecessary emotional entanglements. This transpired while my bruised soul was trying to settle for toxicity. I long lost my trust compass and my insecurities are the only reason I now feel safe. Imagine that, sigh.
Financially, the season has been brutal. Losing sixty percent of one's income is not a joke while a few mouths are one's responsibility but being unable to keep up with the remaining forty percent is even worse. I have seen myself turn 'lazy' over my inability to focus on a task. This should be the downside of being a creative. Since mid 2020, I have been sinking into debts slowly and I can now feel my bones breaking in shame. The plan was there and it didn't indicate any of this. Nothing has been going according to the plan in a while.
So. I no longer have or make plans.
After a relationship I termed as quite serious ended a week before my birthday in October, unprecedented floods swept away an investment I had put so much soul in. Soon after issues traumatising my youngest sprouted out of nowhere and his mental health started being a huge concern. And mine being already a concern, everything went to hell.
November came and I was in purgatory. My favourite girl's twenty second anniversary reawakened my grief-stricken inner child and boom. Everything went dark. December was too chaotic to describe with words. I have zero ideas how I made it through those thirty one days. By January, suicidal thoughts rejoined the gang.
I remember waking up on new years and standing barefeet on my door and wishing I could just die. Somebody on the second floor had shouted happy new year and I had to chase my bitter reply back down my throat. That was my first cue of reaching out to T. Nothing made sense for weeks. Not living (read existing). Not the why or the more whys. Not the mood swings. Not the numbness or the rage.
The rage was being redirected at the already desecrated self that is. And the hate. The self hate. A feeling that righteously asks you if you are worthy of taking care of you. One that won't understand how you didn't figure shit out before it left you damaged.
How could I not wish to die then? How could I not indulge in the darkness of my own death and practically the unforeseen life after? A grave felt more accommodating than the amount of pain my mental fortitude was expected to cope with.
The sessions have been great. T is great. She has this way of undoing my complicating way of thinking. Of undoing this crazy expectations I have helped this rotten society of ours place on me. And on top of that, she is extremely patient with me. And that takes a patient person so I have mad respect for her. How else would I be here pretending that this is a conversation while it is more me talking to myself about myself. She says its healthy though. I now just hope we (me, myself and I) can carve a habit out of it then.
Speaking of which, see you soon. Yes? Thank you for your adherence.
**wambuku w.**
Hello March 👋
Dear Diary,
My silenced writer lies somewhere in my essence trying to find herself. T has been digging deep into my emotional triggers and she says that I need to embrace change. Be quick to adjusting to what comes after change has settled in as the new familiar. I am slow when it comes to soul entanglements. Slow while warming up to the idea of breaking the ice and even slower while undoing the existing ones. Healing for me is tideous and I have had to learn how to be patient with my own journeys.
I let go of journaling again. T is furious about it but repeating the same things to my therapist then to my diary is tiring. I don't see the sense in it. As I hate being where I am emotionally and I can't stand it. I just want to go back to zero entanglements while replenishing my self love. Practice kindness on myself. I seem to be forgetting how to do that.
The last few months have been hell. Unpredictable shit. The kind one thinks they are okay with one minute but they are not the next. A realm where one thinks they are calm but then they figure out they are not. Waves of pain crushing inside the chest like an angry sea. Slowly dying internally. Yet everything on the surface looks and feels numb. A soul living off poisoned blood.
The moon has adorned the nights in inspiring ways but I have been fearful of letting myself bleed in poetic spills. I have denied my poetic side a platform here as she speaks my truth. I haven't seen the need of being truthful with the eyes that will read this. I mean, are you interested in hearing about my pain all time? Its all I have been feeling.
I have deserted projects I have had in my mind like reintroducing myself on LeoFinance. Reactivating myself on Hive and Read.cash. I have not gone back to school. I haven't even touched my books in months. I have done nothing for my own betterment. You could say that sometimes it feels like I have been lazying around.
But the truth is that I haven't.
I have been parenting. Just because you are damaged emotionally or nursing a bruised ego doesn't mean you get to get a break from the duties of motherhood. No sir. Your children will still need a stable parent to guide them. They will expect you to listen and be there for them. Hardest shit ever! I can't tell you how many times my brood has walked in on me secretly bawling. And how quickly my faulty eyesight has been blamed upon. Adulting is a constant lie. I hate it.
I have also been resting. My body has been in pain for months and I couldn't allow myself to even sleep. Imagine denying yourself sleep. Sigh. That is changing slowly though.
I have also been researching about whatever crypto projects I feel are worth my zero experience. Visual exploration has read to my figuring out a few solid things. And one is crypto is infectious. In a good way.
On Saturday afternoon, I fought anxiety all the way to a book launch of a local author. This was my first event since 2019. So much has happened to me since then and for someone who deals with seasonal depression, it was huge as T puts it.
It is her third book and having read tonnes of her work on Facebook (In my country this is how most upcoming writers and authors 'market' themselves) I wanted her book (will share the experience later). It was my way of trying to get out of my comfort zone. Fighting to get back to my sunny self. And boy was it fun!
See you soon.
`wambuku w.`
Violent ReBirth
Dear Diary,
There hasn't been a day that I haven't tried doing this. The draft section harbours my truth and I am no longer allowed to dwell on the why sharing is being so difficult. Or writing. The strength to fight the dark whilst living in it has left my bones. I am here because I seek nothing but light.
You see... I have mastered the art of curving a smile on my heart every morning with the intention of overlooking its leaking walls. I have manned its gates with a horrid smile turning away whomsoever (read me) came looking to do some reflecting on the constant negative waves. The resurfaced demons. The emotional warfare. But my actions haven't changed that turning a blind eye on pain is like pushing hell forward hoping to deal with it some other time in the future. The mind strays for a minute but if anything was to poke on the soul, everything starts falling apart.
I know this. Because I have lived it. For weeks and weeks.
My everything turned into ashes a week or so ago. Valentine's eve was hell raining fire. My chest burned. My mind was buzzing like a tired engine and I welcomed a relapse and indulged in some distressful thoughts for hours. I built and demolished dreams over and over again. I rattled ghosts from seven years back and as I sat there being engulfed by emotional chaos, I knew that I needed to call T.
We check in on each other occasionally. Or rather T checks on me. She has always been a good ear.
Half an hour into a video call and sessions were laid out. I got some praise for going back to journaling. Had agreed to find my way back here and anywhere else my soul feels free. As we came to a close, her concerned eyes pierced through my screen and locked mine.
*I know you are where you are but it is no longer safe for you there anymore. You got to leave now.*
See you soon.
**wambuku w.**
Dear African Child
Sing for the dead
The warriors who came before us
And traded their lives
So you and I can know freedom.
Blow your horns for the women
The unsung mothers
Whose wombs bore those spear throwers
Who fought off raining bullets.
Salutations to our forefathers
To our ancestors
Men who unknowingly sired
A generation of slaves and liberators.
Don't forget the young maidens
Who braved smoke-filled kitchens
To feed the same men
Who were marked to die.
Pay homage
To the blood
That went cold
While staining the soil
You call your home
I have been thinking of the black continent a lot lately. So much is being revealed to me as my love for it's rich and brutal history continues to surge.
`wambuku w.`
Who to Blame
Take a sweeping glance at it all
Cast your eyes where the edges fall
And shame comes to life
Just to remind you his silence allows you
To live. To exist.
And tell me who to blame.
The past keeps poking
On your mental fortitude, rocking
The what is meant to anchor you amidst
The seemingly sane men flooding the streets
Always hurrying. Always rallying.
And tell me who else to blame.
From the shores of your own angry seas
You stood like a spectator waiting to see
How high them toxic waves can raise
Too stiff to entice the much needed inner peace
Reigniting confusion. Refueling its storm.
And tell me who we should blame.
This piece was/is a freewrite from Hive that was collecting dust in my drafts for the last two days.
*Why?*
Sometimes it is difficult to convince myself that a piece is good enough to see the light of the screen. Also. It felt like it wasn't complete. Like there is/was something it lacking as a piece. But I can't seem to come up with anything else to add to it. Share your thoughts :)
The Return of the Lost Scribe
Dear Diary,
The writing spirit has rested on my right arm and my index finger is currently enjoying the small moves on my gadget's keyboard birthing these sentences. That should say something considering that I have been shying away from bleeding on a screen.
The days have been rolling themselves out as usual but somehow mine gained a little weight. They drag through time which in return gifts my demons the time needed to push me over the cliff over and over.
Their audacity to collect me from the valley's floor only to have me crucified again is what astounds me.
The nerve.
But somehow this brutality towards my soul has started forcing me into profound inner dialogs searching for the overall remedy of these draining triggers. My now well noted deficiency to withstand the heat they come with is responsible for my sighing pens.
It is what broke me and continued to ignore my scattered self. I couldn't loosen its grip on my light. Didn't even dare to. I was too weak.
I have been nothing but numb. Pain sowed itself under my skin and spread into my veins. It poisoned everything good. Dismembered then dispersed me. Now , there are parts of me that are yet to find their way back home. They have kept me up at night hoping that they'd show up.
But.
Nothing.
All in all, streams of the ever present love have grounded me. They've watered me unknowingly... unintentionally. They've constantly reminded me of their presence and understably asked to have mine. Topping the charts with their willness to hold me even when I can't admit that I need to be held. Or better yet babied.
They've resurrected what was decaying.
What was dying. Slowly.
Behind a societal friendly mask.
In return, I have begged the heavens for another chance. An opportunity to feed myself with kindness and love. To try and forgive myself. To heal me the best way I know how. To rekindle my affair with words. To better choose the ones that well represent my thoughts or emotions.
Hence the energy needed to reciprocate the incoming love requires me to rethink. To embrace the what is. To be at home with myself. To be one with my flaws. To glow in the dark. To stand out fearlessly. Like a tree overshadowing every other growing thing ♡
***Wambuku W.***
ReEmerging from the Shadows
Dear Diary,
Me, myself and I plus my now fully awakened demons are here to make it known that we still exist. We can't say living as that is for happy people. Whole ones. We ain't that. And we have accepted that. So currently, lets just settle on existing.
We have been ignoring the ink and his squire as we decided to hibernate. For those of you who are not following, hibernation is what we call the period where we want to do absolutely nothing productive with ourselves for some reason. This time, the reason has been dealing with something my pride won't allow the sharer in us to spill on the chain.
Something that has single-handedly gnawed on our vulnerabilities and left us half damaged.
Opening 2020 was like getting another complex puzzle but its like this one came with this unmatched desire to reclaim unpredictability. For all of us. We (ya'll and my multitudinous being included) tried to make the best out of something that was robbing us of our readily available freedom.
The pandemic and her mutating consequences.
From rendering us -the entire human race- unsociable and to leaving every common man of his knees begging for something. Be it food, health or even consideration.
For us, this year has to be the most bittersweet affair we've ever had with a calendar.
The highs had us in cloud high nine -higher than blunts has ever had us- floating on zero doubts.
We surfed the occassional tides with unimaginable egotistical easiness that at some point it made us paranoid that it was even possible. Everything seemed to fall in place for a minute or two and unable to contain our excitement, we shifted our future gears. We made plans. We exercised inclusivity on permission and started making investments towards it.
*At this point, you are allowed to roll your eyes in disgust or whatever it is that you feel for our dreamy selves.*
As we were busy thinking we have turned a new leaf and how finally life was being a little fairer, everything went black. Shock quickly turned into confusion. Then it became anger. This we easily turned inwards and went ahead to project it on our healing core.
It burned like acid would on flesh. It dissolved whatever trust we had replaced our unscalable walls with then went ahead to tame us by taking us on a quick tour to our unproperly buried past.
That trigger was resourceful so from there it was downhill for us.
We should have known that the fall would leave us scattered at unemptied ocean floor.
Its been a while since we felt this much hate for ourselves.
To get here -a place where we feel like we can share our stained thoughts again- we have crawled through days thinking we wouldn't live to see the coming dawns. We have rehoused our demons and redecorated their rooms.
They in return have dragged us back to hell as a requirement if we are to cohabit.
The energy to fight them back to the shadows will refuel itself with time -we are fully aware and embracing that fact- and so will the opportunity to reinvent ourselves as wordsmiths, lovers and nurturers but it will take time. Whatever dying light that is left here is promising us such in the unknown future if we choose to hold on long enough to experience it.
One step at a time.
Surviving the Dark
The moon is caressing the oceanic blue night sky.
The crickets are in harmony with the dying buzz of this day.
Melodies of the night have come alive
As the monsters hiding under this bed.
Old ghosts are reclaiming their usual space
Even after being long forgotten like their graves
And time is on a standstill.
For a second, I am reminded.
That the voices in my head have spoken of this moment.
They have shamelessly argued over it's possibility
Behind my back.
How that there will come a time.
A moment like this.
A time when even loneliness will look over my soul with a pitiful face
Unable to stay itself.
Internal conflict will be having a field day
Working tirelessly to overthrow
Whatever little calm that has chosen to stay.
Consequently reviving the buried chaos
And resurrecting the uncultured mayhem
Ruling over my broken self.
Doubts are to reclaim a sacred throne
Left for the taking at the centre of my dying light.
It is from then, then.
I shall become the undertaker.
The walking dead.
My pens are to turn infertile before my very eyes.
Followed by inkpots then running dry.
Drier than the Sahara and her raging winds.
I would then be lost.
Lost somewhere deep in the trenches of pain and misery.
My voice would then fade from my throat like smoke dissolving into the air.
Who would then save me?
If not myself.
Braving the dragging I back to this toxic society
To learn how to live again.
To exercise breathing again.
While sunk
And now time is no longer on a standstill.
***Wambuku W.***
***♡***
@Blackween
