Gloom
Dear Diary,
The moon is showing off and the clouds are social distancing too across this untamed blue yonder. The stars are sitting pretty spread all over the night sky and a thought of balancing my bony ass on one as I drool at the view of the birds crosses my mind.
Regardless of my fear of heights. I'd grow a pair of wings just for that if I could. How I am a part of this beautiful night gotta be a blessing. Don't you think?
Oddly, dark depressing thoughts have gathered themselves like a spiritual dark cloud threatening to leak through the cracks of my sweating soul. Emotional warfare has taken away the inner peace that existed here.
There is a door tightly closed from the inside that I can't move away from. One which has my essence bewitched and feet glued to a rare wildflower now working its way back within the walls of where the door that leads wherever it is that I am no longer welcome to explore.
Uncertainty is settling here.
My eyes can't help but tear through the unrealistic memories captured here. Disbelief has long found a home here. Away from here, half of my dreams are taking a ship to sail away to a place I don't know. I can feel profound emptiness filling the where they lived wild and free.
Should I bleed more?
I wonder.
My pens hold the secrets to a history packed away in my future. And even the season of gloom can nurture occasional smiles if distraction is engaged.
And distraction is there.
Ain't the night sky one? Walks are slowly becoming even more longer. There is something about being out there in the world that reminds me that I am a part of a bigger race. Gradually breathing life back here. Stitching the what has been floating around as the thought of solitude currently is unpleasant.
Pain would flood here.
Music would be another distraction too but currently I can't stand my playlist. Actually, I can't stand any music at the moment. Everything I don't intend on feeling is tied to this healing magic. Locked away in the melodies I used to enjoy. Talk about relying on recorded rain sounds for sanity.
But still distractions are there.
I can hear books reminding me of their wealth of escape routes. Papers and ink can be felt persuading me to take a look in between some rather traumatic episodes of mentally chasing down the unknown.
Soon. Or never. Everything will fade away into the then. Time will integrate with fate and find a way to unglue my feet at the door I can't seem to move away from. Scars will then emerge. Hopefully.
For now, I can't really tell when that happens. If it ever happens. This will be a difficult lesson. It has been a difficult one.
*See you soon...*
Africa is Burning
I wanted to write about music and probably bore you with how I have been avoiding it even though I know it helps me heal. But that will be a story for another day it seems.
Today, let me stray away from the emotions and walk myself somewhere I never really venture as a scribe, politics.
If you are like me, you have already rolled your eyes while letting out a sigh that stays low until a moment like this. Politics for me is a dirty game. One that can make you rich overnight where I come from or cost you your own life.
As I write this, Ugandan Presidential Candidate Robert Kyagulanyi populary known as Bobi Wine is being charged with endangering the same lives he is fighting for. The charge was 'an act of spreading covid19!'.
*Welcome to Africa...*
This being the most sensible charge that a whole judge would come up with to massage the ego of a selfish 74 year old fool. Bobi's arrest, over heavens know what, birthed radical protests in the capital and has since left 37 dead. Souls whom Ugandan Security Minister, a coward by the name of Elly Tumwine agreed with the rogue Police Force deserved to die.
Tumwine was even quoted by BBC Africa telling the same citizens he's in charge of protecting that the police had a right to kill them when asked about the unfortunate heroic deaths. He sealed it with encouraging his men -the police now- to arrest anyone defying their beloved president. This has lead to hundreds of unwarranted arrests.
*Want to know more*?
Their current president (Yoweri Kaguta Museveni) is a murderous dictator who has ruled the landlocked nation for 24 long miserable years. Though his reign was happily welcomed back in 96 when he helped end a military rule, his grip on power just like his friend from the South -the late Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe- dutifully instilled fear among Ugandans. *And with good reason...* Mugabe single-handedly broke Zimbabwe.
But.
This thirty eight year old singer namely Bobi Wine has been 'inciting' the Ugandan youth for a few solid years now. He alone has chosen this path of speaking out against this African colonialist. This hasn't been letting the old man sleep as denial has him sunk in a fantasy where he rules forever. No one is supposed to defy him.
*No one!*
But a revolution is threatening to erupt and he can't believe that his untouchability is eroding away.
Crossing over to the bordering Democratic Republic of Congo and a humanity crisis blooms like a wildflower in October. Children as young as seven can be seen on trending videos undergoing forced child labour (barefoot and in the rain) so giant mobile phone companies like Apple can top these consumer end charts with worthy hardware. Nothing much can be done to redress the situation thanks to a corrupt government and hungry citizens.
I am disgusted at what greed has solely achieved.
I am disgusted by all of it.
Another troubled country over (Cameroon) and we land into Nigeria. This one has been up in smoke for a while now. On the night of my birthday, the #EndSARS vigil for change was raided by the same lot they were up in arms over and sprayed with state bullets at the cover of darkness. Bodies of young Nigerians sprawled across the streets of Lekki covered with their green and white flag which they had used as shields when bullets rained on them to mark how intolerable their demands for social justice were.
The fierce movement crossed the bridge that dawn to become the #LekkiMassarce and Buhari the warmonger had a whole Governor blaming bad spirits and such. Imagine that!
Like I said at the beginning of this rant, welcome to Africa.
*Want some more?*
Libya has been going through chaos since Gaddafi's death on 20th October 2011. *My* *birthday again*, smh. This January's airstrike on a military academy in its capital Tripoli that left at least 17 students dead acted as a reminder of a civil war that has been smoldering for decades.
Speaking of civil wars, one is looming in Ethiopia as we speak. Tensions between a man who won a Nobel Peace prize as recently as 2019 and forces loyal to the northernmost Region of Ethiopia namely Tigray have boiled over and the hapless Ethiopians living in that region plus their counterparts across the Eritrean border are dying for it.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the peace prize after 'successfully ending a two decade war' between Ethiopia and Eritrea. With his Oromo background, he made enemies with corrupt Tigray officials whilst trying to cleanse his administration and now he is dealing with their retaliation with censored bloodshed.
Tigray is armed (they have their own army of course...sigh) and so is the Prime Minister. I will leave you to fill in the blanks who is doing the dying and the living with fear.
It is suspected that Abiy Ahmed also assassinated a popular ethnic Oromo figure Haacaaluu Hundeessaa at the beginning of this last July a week after he criticised his slip into dictatorship on a widely watched Oromo TV channel.
Close to 250 lives were lost during protests that followed his death and Ethiopia (and Africa in general) mourned and continued to fester in corruption.
Sigh. To be continued.
Fifty Four!
Dear Diary,
The night is long and the mind is unsettled. Cold memories are regaining life and cutting through the present like a sharp blade. The past tastes just like whatever I ate for supper and the need to spew some of it here has brought forth these words.
My favourite girl has rested for the last twenty two years. Her anniversary comes on the tenth of this month. Today, just two days later, her birthday comes through. If she lived long enough to see the devastation of the current pandemic, she would've turned fifty four today.
I miss her presence more than anything.
My mother was dark. She wore the colour of the night like a fitting gown. She had a smile that time can't seem to wipe out of my mind. Her voice is fading away together with my minimal memories of her.
Her other two daughters think I remind them of her. Her unfiltered love for children. Her generosity. Her loud laughter. They usually compare me to her. It's humbling but I believe they are wrong.
You see, my mother was no ordinary woman. She embodied other elements that somehow I am yet to unlock. Keep in mind that I have surpassed her existence with four extra years now. She was too wise. Too calm. Too collected even while going through hell. Too confident.
She simply knew what she was doing.
I on the other hand, have been finding myself as I parent my own. How then can there be comparison between me and the woman who moulded half of the woman I am? Even in her death, her words have been a guide through my entire life.
When I think about her, the more I think she somehow felt like she wouldn't live long. And so in her own way she readied me for the unpredictable journey ahead. I have always found myself thinking in terms of -what would have my mum said about this?- when there is a crucial decision that needs to be made.
Her demise came with so much negative vibes from my relatives. A few things that she insisted on while on her deathbed became too obvious too fast. I remember sinking to the ground behind my grandparents smoking kitchen and breaking down there.
The smoke would be the culprit if anyone asked why I looked like I was crying or why my eyes were red. I was forbidden from mourning my mum as that would have made it seem like I was a neglected orphan according to my folks. They believed it would bring shame to them as a family and we were made aware. I have never forgiven them for that.
And I think I should stop there. See you soon!
The Sinking into Chaos...
Dear Diary,
I have missed you. It is NaNoWriMo and my relationship with words is currently on the rocks. I feel like a slave while picking up a pen or zigzagging my fingers on a keyboard to type sentences whichever the form.
There is a gapping hole where my heart used to be and I can bet that the scattered mess clogging up my chest is what is left of it. I feel numb. And broken at the same time.
They say that love can't be love if it does not do things like rip us open and poke on our vulnerabilities to bringing us to our knees and rendering us humble.
I must be on my knees.
I can't really tell.
Everything hurts.
Migraines are playing the enthusiastic signals reminding me that my head ain't no chimney. I have heard my lungs complaining of being too overworked of late too. I am looking into it.
Darkness came back. Our relationship is helping my inner critic amplify a few I told you sos'. It is aiding my being by fueling her unwillingness to forgive me. I am sure it will take time to convince her that I can take care of her or us.
Doesn't she know that I want to want to get better. That I have been wanting to meet my smile again. I just don't remember how to or where to.
Light can been seen on the horizon refusing to set like the sun disappeared in the West. My efforts to invite her back home has been met by my defiant self and her reawakening trust issues.
I have meditated. I have tried to disowning my own pain. *Neither works!* I have only ended up drowning in my own tears over and over again. Its like pain is glued to my bones just like my flesh.
I wish I was ready for the coming two weeks.
It is that time of the year again. The season where as Jacaranda's bloom ceases, unanswerable questions linger on my overthinking mind a little longer than necessary.
Her anniversary comes before her birthday.
Two days before.
Is that a coincidence?
I wonder.
Like how can one die two days before they are reborn?
This one will hit harder.
I can feel it. And I am afraid I am not emotionally fit to deal with all of it.
Thirty seven has been here for just for two weeks. I am sad to report it has just been out here dishing out salty tears.
Reawakening fears. Boldly making threats to drag me back to hell.
*Currently fighting for my headspace*...
Walls are going back up. Fast. I can feel my inner child stealing moments to take in what it is like to be wild and free. Like the old days... but there is also an understanding of the need to stay hidden!
See you soon. Hopefully.
A slice of a green paradise!
My soul has been trying to digest something that is proving difficult and in my attempts to clear the mind and find myself again, I went where I go to recharge. It was a refreshing afternoon though it didn't help me achieve the intial goal, I settled for some breathtaking views!
Where 'we' began. I was in the company of a good friend who is also a cousin of mine.
This stretch of greenhouses house a variety of flowers usually for export. We walked to the other end of this photo :D
Ever seen manicured nature?
These are the trees you see at the edge of the second shot! It took us 40rty minutes to hike here from the other end :D
The other side! Everything here is green :)
Going home half heartedly :(
Photos taken with a Redmi 9 Pro. I hope you enjoyed my green therapy!
Dear Diary... Forty Minus Three
The day is slipping away into history and the sun has already given in to the dark clouds gathering. My head hurts. Either from the restlessness of my unsettled soul or from the endless blunts.
Today I have turned thirty seven. I can't articulate the thrill of living past thirty three so I am quite grateful to be here.
My favourite girl didn't get that opportunity and today of all my birthday's I missed her the most. I believe she would have had a few crucial answers to some pressing matters.
Some that I have had since I figured myself out. Some that can only be answered by her herself. Others that involve an indepth look on how to simply do life. Mothers have magic powers, my daughter keeps saying and I believe mine had some too.
Other than wishful thinking, I have welcomed back my never leaving pain. A beautiful journey grew teeth as sharp as those of a shark to tear my hope and dreams in pieces. I am yet to digest it.
This has invited writing escapism back here. The act of being thrown from warmth to the furthest corner of the South Pole has left my soul in an arthritic mode. I can feel myself fighting to stay warm while the conditions of where I am are forcing me to go numb.
I am broken waiting to be frozen.
My offsprings and siblings have sang praises. They've showered my being with too much love. Family is what is helping keep the chaos inside intact.
Dear diary.
I promise you a better entry tomorrow but today, all there is this unexplorable pain.
I celebrate almost four decades of living and existing. Of the life lessons and challenges that have left me drained but a lil bit wiser every goddamn time. The sun. And the many times she has smiled on my face. Of the wind. And her ever present presence.
Would you be mine?
The first time you said hi
I secretly wondered why
A soul of your caliber would be moved by mine
Your smooth transition into my life
Left me sure
You would bring down a few tall walls
Keeping most of the society out
Boundaries I had worked tirelessly on for years
Caging myself through my own sweat and tears
Only to fall without a sound at your feet.
This is a reflection of my now crazed thoughts
The magic of what I see
When I peer through my usually darkened mirrors
A fantasy carved out of my day dreams
The what I want and how I want it
Blended with desires making my nerves scream.
I see your arms rushing to join behind my waist
My eyes getting lost in yours for a minute
Curious of how they dance in joy
While secretly plying on how to make you coy
I see our starving lips gathering too close
I see them moving to close the gap between them
In a matched haste
Consuming each other in a choreographed sensual spin
Spilling the feels accumulated within.
I see the constant pressure
Questionably piling in from every corner
I see fingers pointing
And tongues overworking behind our backs
But my heart is full and stacked
Where yours was packed
And in return
I am requesting to keep yours
As you find mine a cure
All I really want to ask is
Won't you please stay with me?
Would you please be mine?
Image from Pixabay.
The Beautiful Side...
Due to my latest decision to keep active on the chain and this uncomfortable feeling I can't seem shake off, I am going to try and do the impossible for my writer. Pen an inspirational piece.
I have been the most negative person I had ever met but my self awareness journey has seen me uncover a few admirable traits about myself which has in return helped my being welcome warmth and light in.
No one ever comes to this world enveloped in a melancholy mood. It is slowly accumulated thanks to life dishing out impossible circumstances to mere mortals. A chain of unfortunate events stalking some unlucky soul for years on end and finally managing to cripple it by robbing it the sense of pride in self.
Then comes the days, months or years of enduring anxiety and self doubt. When the voices screaming loudly inside take over and rule the shell of that soul with fear followed with one becoming their worst enemy. Inner critics are the worst!
I know all this because I have been through it over and over again. It is an infinite cycle that never really stops unless one decides to step out of it themselves.
My decision to break mine came a few years ago. Half of my brood wanted to come back home after close to a decade and that saw me fully recharged to live and thrive but then my health started making serious threats. A few months later, a fire broke out in my house rolled a dice on my life and almost had it. I lost so much that year actually but nothing drove me back to that place of intolerable darkness again.
I was still crawling towards light. Still fighting to regain control of my essence.
I started celebrating myself more. Engaging with like minded people and investing in meaningful relationships and conversations. Reading helped me too and still does to this day. It is my easiest escape from reality. A break from overwhelming situations. The where I run to hide. Just like writing.
Inner peace has been finding it's way here too...Thanks to intentionally learning how to exercise self love and saying no. Chaos have significantly reduced in my headspace. There is also some space to accommodate another broken soul. That is something there has never been room for.
I am thrilled to even add that the room is occupied. Something I was never expecting.
My journey has made me see my resilience with a fresh set of eyes. It has loudly brought out my love for family. My rebelliousness. My softer parts. My compassion fatigue. My interests. And my overall strength among other beautiful things that make up my mosaiced soul.
Writing Challenges and Other Short Stories
Writing has never been easy for me. Perfectionism is a weakness I have been having an abusive affair with and in the writing world, it is a huge problem if one yearns to master this classy art.
There lives a fountain of words here which helps me be a good orator when my extroverted side outshines my usually cagey self. But, I also have healed scars and festering wounds all thanks to opening up. From these painful life lessons, I have learnt how to be cautious with what I put out there.
This has played a huge role in crippling my writer. In taking away her fluency too many times. In draining away her curiosity for niche exploration. Sometimes, I can't help but feel like I am silencing her. An act that aids in limiting the usual speedy recoveries from traumatic events.
You see, writing also translates into healing for me. It is how I repair whatever breaks down psychologically. A way of talking myself out of the darker bits of life.
Like the recent death of a childhood friend. A thirty eight year old soul who crossed over to the other side thanks to cancer. I am still trying to digest it all.
*How we met and became friends. Her encouraging energy when I lost my mum. The last time I saw her smile. Her sudden death. The anguish on her three young daughters' faces as they left her graveside.*
Followed by how short life really is. Or how death lurks in every second we breath in.
When I write, I pen what I experience. What I consume of a modern world that seemingly oozes more toxic energy than light. Having tasted my own share of pain, I often find myself trying to filter out the darkness in most of my pieces or racing through paragraphs to end some prematurely to supposedly spare my reader the painful details which mostly ends up ruining everything thanks to self doubt and unnecessary paranoia.
Writing can't be rushed. Like parenting, it has stages inclusive with responsibilities tied to the entire process of wielding it as a skill. It requires commitment and time. Like young ones, it demands attention and nourishing patience to grow. With this art, one cannot cheat their way past the unceasing sacrifices.
I have confessed to my having a bittersweet relationship with this liberating tool. The kind that would have anyone question my love for it. At times I struggle even making it through a single sentence then there is the overwhelming rush to write down my thoughts.
When I then do write, I can't help but feel overcome by the unspoken feeling of feeling like a mortal god holding on to future's history. I feel most overwhelmed by the whole idea of creating pieces that other human beings relate to. It simply humbles me as a writer and as a person.
Here is to me crawling back home to my alphabets.
Care For An Update?
Ever felt like time ain't enough? Like you are trying to do so much and there is too little of this precious illusion? For the last few months, I have been doing what feels like chasing the wind. I call it that because I don't have much to show for what has been going on.
**Mushroom Farming Project**;
Those who follow and consume my pieces know that I have been readying myself to start mushroom farming on a piece of land sitting idly at my grandparents. The idea is to be my 'other source of income' aside from freelancing which is currently my livelihood.
The project initially attracted a capital of 800 dollars. I say intially because that has drastically changed. I had calculated a rough budget and while trying to implement it, it was obvious that I had gotten a few things quite wrong. This inflated it to close to a little over 1000 dollars.
My clientele falling by forty percent on my usual freelancing gigs hasn't made anything easier. In silence, I have struggled to keep my household afloat and with the help of my person and a few friends, I am doing it.
Though it is still in it's early stages, there is an unquantifiable amount of pride here for taking the first steps.
**Crypto Flu;**
This was supposed to be a piece on it's own. One of how I stumbled upon faucets and started collecting drips of this futuristic economic fuel. I have been on the hunt for the best faucets and I must say there is more truth in this phrase -World Wide Web- for me.
From the well known likes of Coinpot and the five moon faucets to budding promising sites and scores of scams, I have seen it all.
It's keeping me busy. It's making me feel like I have something to say about crypto to contribute. Like I am now fully a part of this vast and still cryptic community.
Airdrops are the other thing. I am basically scavenging to find real ones. This is probably being fueled by my missing out on the one that Uniswap recently did as my trust wallet was sitting pretty in my tablet while I used Exodus wallet instead! I am yet to forgive myself.
**Exploring Other Communities;**
I joined the chain first back in June 2017. A man by the name of Jerry Banfield whisked me from my insomnia while perusing Facebook at 2am. I had just installed my WiFi network and I had no interest in watching anything as I would have expected of myself to be.
You see, my love for films and raw documentaries had been dissolved by that of financial stability. I collided with his video and after being promised hundreds of dollars per week, I ran to Steemit.
After realising, it was not really the promised land, I desserted the chain for months only to be dragged back by my love for the newfound community. The ship though would soon after rock and crash somewhere along the shores of personal gain. Somehow, before it crashed a whole community of bees rolled into a hive and I was carried with them.
Curiosity is what me wonder what is out there and in the last two to three months, I have joined read.cash, publish0x, tsu and project bluefire. I have been on Uptrennd for a while too and I can confirm that I am no longer sure there's a perfect community out there anymore.
Each and every one of has it's own class of issues.
**Conclusion;**
Mushroom farming is teaching me patience. That farming can't be rushed if I want good yields. It has also taught me that having ready funds and something extra could've been much better.
Faucets and airdrops are a good way of gathering crypto. Though it takes times and requires loads of patience too, it can be done.
People are simply greedy by nature.
Because even if Uptrennd is a good community, they're dealing with unimaginable spam from Pakistan and West Africa. But it has nothing on the spam on tsu. That is beyond anything I have ever seen!
Read.cash is interesting but I am not yet sure if it deserves my pieces and it has its share of spam and scams in form of airdrops. Publish0x is classy but can someone show this creative writer and poet how to break the crypto ice and collect some ETH?
Project bluefire is okay but it just began and it has just but a handful of members which makes it very had to analyse for me.
Longest post ever. I hope it finds well...
Burning Desire
Been a while since cupid sneezed romance dust this way. These days, I avoid penning erotica based on the 'negative' comments that follow it everywhere. Mild or not, most people tend to assume that this art is for perverted minds even as they too enjoy it.
**Burning Desire**
*I think about your smile*
*The way your lips curve into its beauty*
*Inviting anyone who has eyes*
*To a world of your undiluted warmth.*
*Oh how soft your lips must be*
*I have tasted them in my daydreams*
*And I am yet to encounter*
*Anything close to how silky they are.*
*I get lost in your shy*
*Your burning cheeks sow the urge*
*To dig deeper into your sensuous eyes*
*Even while they are falling hard for my feet.*
*I obsess over your caramel skin*
*Glowing bright at the back of my tongue*
*As I explore how it stretches over your bones*
*While reflecting the morning sun.*
*My fingers twitch with desire*
*To run a mile through your damp hair*
*Like I am looking to quench my thrist*
*With the streams of your dripping sweat.*
*I yearn to drink from your springs*
*Taste the forbidden well*
*Sitting at feet of your cascading hips*
*While overlooking those delicate thighs*.
Hopefully this found you well. Do share your thoughts :)
The Complexity of this Being...
Sometimes. There is silence here. Calmness that exceeds my very own understanding. Probably because there has always been chaos and difficulties. Inadequacy too. The soul can't be more thrilled for living to see this happen even if it is only sometimes.
In that quiet, thousands of whispers converge to say what seems to be a whole lot. Things that they must have been piling over time while waiting for an opportunity to spew them here. Nothing they ever have to say is shareable sadly.
Oftentimes. There is the undigested shock of belonging. Some sacred contentment occupying the same space toxic waste had. It is unimaginable what a healthy and steady dose of unquestionable love can achieve in months.
I'd gladly call it magic. The rare kind!
The trick usually is to balance how loud the voices screaming -how you don't deserve anything that pure- can get. Silencing them for good is another whole different ballgame. We coexist here.
Sometimes. There is a sea of worry and bottomless doubts. Features long ingrained with how everything works here. Obsessing and overthinking can be felt helping make it an ocean just to drown a single soul.
It is then that the chest gets weighty. Breathing becomes a task. Paranoia can be felt enveloping everything like the night. How do we go back to the light? The soul can always be caught wondering.
Sometimes. There is the need to ask for help. To shout at the top of our punched keyboards that we are sinking. Pride can be felt awakening shame to rise to the occasion and bury this being.
How is it that up until now we don't have it together? Maybe no man is an island but this is getting out of hand. Until when? Is the question that even time itself is asking.
Sometimes. The thought of incapability swarms in. Budding hope is forcefully evicted. Darkness can then be felt looking to reign while feeding off the unproclaimed but present sense of defeat.
It is then expected that this essence should decay and die. That it won't even flinch leave alone fighting back for it's space. WpBut then again, who gives up their home so easily though?
Sometimes. Undiluted emotions find their way to the surface. Fast unlike baby teeth. The skin finds it impossible to contain some. And without a warning they make it known that they exist even after years of them trying to be buried deep.
Their stand can be translated into humanity. We must be a part of that enervated looking strong race!
`This is prose. I am not sure which community it should be in. Hopefully it finds you well... Posted on my hive too :)`
Feeling Lost...
I wish to find joy among angry men
The lightness of a willing soul
Carving a permanent smile
On my dismembered pain.
The thrill of inner freedom
Whispers that there is more wisdom
In relinquished societal chains.
I wish to find my footing
In a world where everything is taken
Other than my broken.
These unsettled chaos
Remind me of my undecided spirit
Cruising down the normalized paths
Only to get lost.
I wish to be left alone to be
Nothing more than my weird self
The act of trying to fit in
Is confined within my skin.
(A selfie of my locked hair and an amazing sunset taken a few days ago) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The above piece is more of a freewrite than it is poetry. More has been really looking enticing and I can't seem to quench my desire to grasp everything. There is an opportunity here, if the clock hands weren't as fast and undeterred.
They said time waits for no man and my day has already been halved by parental responsibilities. A rat race that sometimes demands more time than the actual being there as a parent. It gets worse especially when the whats coming through the wallet doesn't match the effort.
Also posted on my Hive!
Inner Battles
Someone has their claws on your throat
You can't breath so you freeze
Air won't get to your head
So darkness crawls in
The urge to walk out is there
But you seem blind
Until your hands become your eyes
Searching for your way out
Only for something to hiss in the dark
And force them to run back to you in fear
Afraid of being chopped away
In single deadly bites
Down the throats
Of your now converging demons.
Chaos erupt
Yelling can be heard
You wonder how no one else seems to notice
How living inside your skin can be draining
When the voices become as loud
And pride leaves your tongue so proud
Forcing you to fight solo
While the weight of this unforgiving life
Has you down on your knees
Begging for the much needed quiet
Unable to withstand the noise
Of their uncultured take over.
Something is trying to keep you under
Helping you slowly die
The state of being a living zombie
Has you on the set of the walking dead
Cruising down the busy streets
While stuck in your own limiting bubble
Grinding alongside other disguised ones
Unfit to rat each other out
The fight to swim back up
For a gasp of the much needed air
Then becomes a daily battle
Fighting each of them back
For the right to your own headspace.
I am very passionate about mental health and this was one of many ways of highlighting the usually overlooked Angel of death.
UnTitLeD
I see them
Crawling on these whitish old ceilings
In my dsyfunctional daydreams
Attempting to make eye contact with my sinful
In my disturbing nightmares.
I feel them on my skin
Slithering away like the reptiles they are
Helping fear blanket the boldness within.
I see them in other men's shadows
Unapologetically glaring at my muted disoriented soul
Looking to remind me of the many disastrous vows
We often undertake with the dark side.
I have seen them on pulpits
Slowly taking over to give way to greed
Revealing countless wolves trusted as shepherds.
I see them in battlefields
Arming honorable soldiers to take innocent lives
As if just to religiously contribute
To the untold bloodshed
That reflects what violent tongues can yield.
I have seen them
Working hard to suffocate the remaining light
Brewing unending chaos day and night
And silently wondered
If we are indeed going to allow them.
I have unmatched ability to come with UnTitLeD stuff. Kindly bear with me and do share your thoughts :)
Thank you for visiting ♡
UnTitLeD #Fiction
*I sat closest to the opened gate. At the edge of the green tattered tent that was dutifully shielding the mourners from the unpredictable weather. It had rained the night before but at the funeral, the afternoon sun was roasting those who came in late.*
*An old man in white sat on the bench before me. The wrinkled back of his neck shagged to come into contact with the nape of his neck. His white hair matched his spotless suit.*
*He had welcomed us with a smile as he had been seated there when we arrived me and my mother. Then my mother had to go be with the bereaved women somewhere in the main house.*
*I had begged to be allowed to go with her. Something about death fascinated my thirteen year old mind.*
*But during the storm that claimed the night before, a few disturbing images emerged in my unsettled sleep and flooded my mind. So when the morning came I had doubts about going but my mum insisted she was taking me with her as I had insisted while asking.*
*And there I was, admiring an old man's white hair while trying to push away the dark images from yesternight that were blanketing my thoughts.*
*A woman with a crying child left her seat next to me and the old man gladly exchanged seats with her for her own convenience. Where he was seated, she wouldn't disturb anyone -read me- if she needed to stand.*
*He then said a quick hello to me and whoever the woman with the crying child was separating me from then shifted his attention back to me. He smiled. Softly. Like a loving grandfather would. Mine was a terrible drunk, I avoided him.*
*The rector said something that caused a ripple of laughter through the small crowd which eased the mood and all of a sudden people were talking to each other.*
*The old man turned to me with immense affection in his eyes like a man would his own grandchild and said...*
*'See to it that you live your life to the fullest. That you chase whatever you need to chase in order for you to taste fulfillment. Look for the good in others, it's less tiring than incubating grudges.'*
*A chilly sensation rushed through my growing bones and I sealed it with a few hurried nods. But he continued to look at me for a second with detectable concern and I added a smile to confirm that indeed I fully understood what he had said even though I didn't. Truth be told, my mind was too excited that he spoke to me for some reason to digest any of his short speech.*
*In that moment, I wished my grandfather was like him. Respectful. Clean. Wise.*
*When I was coming back to the reality that he wasn't, a few minutes had gone by and people were now lining up to pay their last respects to the fallen giant.*
*Giant they said? I wanted to see him too.*
*I knew he wasn't a giant per se but if he had garnered the respect of all the people present while he was alive then he definitely had that of a curious shaken young girl.*
*I dragged my feet towards the elegant looking coffin flipping through my ideas of what dead people looked like. My mum said that they looked like they were sleeping. Peacefully. She always added.*
*Yet I didn't understand why my feet then weighed more than usual or why people were displaying mixed reactions after peeping in the open casket.*
*When I got to it, I looked back at the friend I had just made for reassurance and needed support but the old man was no longer seated in the crowd. A quick sweep through the available faces and zero results.*
*Then I looked inside the coffin and there he was.*
Thank you for visiting 🙂
Cross Posted on Publish0x.
I am...
I am it
The one who was never it
The liberty of free eagles scouting the blue skies
Yet still the same one from their past stories
Of sadness and unimaginable grief
The one who is said to have tasted loving love in brief.
I am a blooming Jacaranda
And the hut I was born in was no bigger than a verandah
I hail from a kitchen full of choking smoke
And everything I ever spoke
Had to be verified from other folks.
I am a revenant of some angry ancestors
Coloured men who watched their own ferried
Into the stretch of southern waters
Was reborn from some of their restless spirits
Cast deep below the ocean floor.
I am a pot of black gold
Proof that life began on my violated home soil
I bear the darkest skin in this populated world
The mark of the first man to ever toil
While traded like owned cheap soil.
I am the underrated breed
A feminist tired of this crippling patriarchy
Thriving in obvious misogyny
Persistently making my insides bleed
Wondering if they will ever embrace equality.
I wrote this a while back but I have reedited it further read.cash community. Share your thoughts!
Thanks for coming :)
Lustful Daydreams...
*I see recognizing smiles*
*Lustful thoughts quickly tracing the xfiles*
*Hearts pounding their nervous away*
*The eyes lock and tie*
*And it is here that clothes gain weight*
*Peeling them off in a steamy haste*
*As lust turns into dripping sweat*
*With nipples at their hardest.*
*I see the slow mo loving kisses*
*Lips looking to dock in places*
*No other set ever crept*
*It is here they sink into a mellow meltdown*
*Disarming every existing frown*
*While moving to the rhythm of exploring hands*
*And unashamed fingers*
*Looking to find hidden treasure.*
*I see the blushing cheeks*
*The springs where shy often leaks*
*The audacity of a forbidden want*
*Camouflaged in a red silent rant*
*Ignitingly taking over the body*
*To pleasingly pursue*
*Quickened short breaths*
*And a sight of sweaty selves.*
*I see a back yearningly arched*
*As a needy body submits to a disarming touch*
*And unattended desires longingly aching*
*To be remedied by its burning feel*
*Seductive moans to then fill*
*The dampened air*
*Of a horny man's lair*
*Blended with whispered longings.*
Thank you for visiting 😊
Disoriented Poet
*The ink has run dry*
*there is nothing in these pens*
*other than this enticing pain*
*calling out your name*
*and with humility,*
*you readily avail yourself.*
*You see pain has its way with men*
*it digs a path*
*that you reluctantly follow*
*far away from the comforts of your notions*
*while stranded in seasonal conditions*
*you go where the pain leads.*
*The new place claims you*
*it inhabits you*
*wields your said pain like an armour*
*then turns those unshed tears to ink*
*to flood on blank pages*
*seeking to make its hold tamer.*
*With every poetic spill*
*your soul finds relief*
*the snail pace of how to heal*
*like building a bridge to the moon*
*taking its sweet time*
*yet it can't be coerced or helped.*
*You hammer against your spirit*
*tap on the fickle walls*
*that house your tired human*
*checking if they still hold*
*and those that can fold*
*and collapse on your damned feet.*
♧♧♧
Also posted on my Publish0x.
I have been rethinking my coming to this community. I tend to get disoriented by a place that shoots before asking questions. Someone claimed that my work was plagiarised yet I created it... Anyway. Here I am :)
The Green Paradise...
How close have you ever been to manicured tea beds? They are simply breathtaking... healing even 🍃☁️
This is my rural home. It is suitable for tea planting and harbours a chilly breeze regardless of how hot the sun is 🌲🤍
The dam that irrigates all this tea and provides water for domestic use to some community members. It's undrinkable though 🦢
Other farming activities... as we have to eat :)
Hopefully you enjoyed your green therapy. These were all taken with my Nokia then edited with Photoshop Express!
Thank you for visiting ♡
Journeying...
*From knowing pain more than faith*
*To refusing hope and whatever it brings*
*To always taking doubtful steps forward*
*To then have the strength to run back to the past*
*To suffocating while still breathing*
*To craving for peace while holding on to demons.*
*From having an abusive affair with fear*
*To dragging the weight of shame around town*
*To being a closeted antisocial*
*To desiring the power of invisibility*
*To being quite jealous of the wind*
*To forgetting my way back home.*
*From losing my voice shouting at the moon*
*To allowing some negative thoughts to bloom*
*To overfeeding my gluttonous inner critic*
*To then survive on anything toxic*
*To take in whatever life throws*
*To also aid them in magnifying my flaws.*
*From denying myself everything*
*To partially die while trying*
*To please everyone else who ain't me*
*To helping tighten their ropes around my neck*
*To then find myself coiling inwardly when they point*
*To finally giving up my tormented soul.*
*From raising from some forgotten ashes*
*To wielding fountains of crude ink*
*To then refine them into heartbreaking stanzas*
*To sharing their raw pain on your screens*
*To keeping some away from the outside eyes*
*To then become hopefully of healing self.*
Thank you for visiting 😊
Find Me...
Find me there
Lying in her delicate arms
Playing with those softer palms
Counting the years of love
That she would make my lips curve
I swear that sometimes
It all feels like the right rhymes.
Find my hands
Snaking up her light blouse
Looking to settle upon the hills
Mounted on her chest for feels
With the aim to arouse
Her frozen passion
And reignite sensual action.
Find my fingers
Caressing our fears away
Whispering that she should stay
On behalf of my wishful muted lips
As her softness drowns me for keeps
Feeling like I have my hands
Sinking into moving clouds.
Find my tongue
Wandering on her every inch
Savouring her chocolate skin
Lost in a brown so damn rich
With tastebuds working to conquer
My heart's very own ruler
And make her body my home.
Find my body
Becoming her home too
Getting used to her softness
While she dissolves my roughness
To mould a different me
Drenched in hope to see
Myself falling again.
Thank you for visiting 😊
Wambuku W.
The Writing Life
Anyone who writes will tell you that writing is one of the hardest things to do but also probably the easiest. It is a skill that requires a daily polish to retain its initial sheen. That is equivalent to consistency and most human beings, myself included, are wired to procrastinate. Daily journal entries and small amounts of opinion and thoughts scattered in notebooks can help one forge a routine that evolves into this discipline namely the writing life.
Writing is a majorly lonely lifestyle. It involves solo creation and execution most of the time. I feel like I am talking to myself while writing... even right now. The comments that get left at the foot of any published piece are what lets any scribe know who 'listened' and decided to make it known that they did.
It is the courage in hitting publish and waiting for the feedback whether positive or negative that the writer usually struggles with especially if they are a bit eager to know what the readers think.
I myself have gone as far as deleting some already published posts paranoid that no one liked or would like them. While doing so, my mind never really digests that anyone would be interested in anything I share.
And seasoned writers understand this paranoia fully. They let us (those questioning their writing capabilities) know that it is okay to feel such.
In his preface to The Spoils of Poynton, Henry James pities the writer in some comical pair of sentences that leave me wondering what sometimes it is all for! And I quote, "Which is the work in which he hasn't surrendered under dire difficulty?"
And it is true. There is no day as a writer that you won't doubt yourself and your work as you press publish. The more you read, the worse it gets.
When I started reading heavily, I remember bringing down an entire blog of poems and reflective articles that I had published back in 2011. Something changes when you read far and wide. Inadequacy creeps on you and shadows your grammatically incorrect pieces.
I wouldn't suggest what I did because I lost ideas I could've edited.
Nothing makes sense here. The art of feeling like you are not enough merges with the healing writing brings and you can't help come back to it everytime you leave. Creating demands of us to align with ourselves. To dig through painful experiences and mould lessons out of the said pain. It's uncomfortable and unpredictable but it is also home. And at home, we are all welcome.
***Also posted on my Publish0x.com and Hive!**
Seeking Control
I sometimes pen a bit of romance... I hope you enjoy it. Do share your thoughts.
In the stillness of the night
her skin glows against
your trembling hands
fighting desire floods.
Her softness teases
openly asking for kisses
calling out for you
even without a clue.
If only she could be more
maybe allow your core
to float in her dreams
as you stir her streams.
Tempted to taste her all
your tongue heavily swells
salivating with lust
the need of a single thrust.
You beg the dawn to show
before the itch grows
try to focus on the dark
until it kills your spark.
Blues...
`Play me the harp`
`like the queen`
`I am`
`to help`
`silence the`
`chaos within`
`my mind`
`with your`
`love stricken blues.`
`Chase my lost spirit`
`across the vast`
`haunted loveless deserts`
`with my tribal beats`
`and witness drums`
`airlifting`
`my African feet`
`back to`
`that diluted undeniable`
`africanicity.`
`Walk with me`
`through this world`
`of infinite blues`
`floating`
`disturbingly in the air`
`as a melancholy mood`
`hovers over`
`our depressed souls`
`for humanity`
`long evaporated.`
`Tell me if we can`
`heal this decaying`
`universe`
`in our breathing spans`
`with some treasured`
`old sad melodies`
`drenched with lessons`
`about hate and where`
`it can take us`
`if we allow it to spread`
`unanimously.`
**Wambuku W.**
Meet Kiko The Giraffe
Back in December 2017, I had the pleasure of visiting the David Sheldrick Wildlife Orphanage in the heart of the city in the sun or simply, Nairobi.
My eyes witnessed the absurdity of extreme poaching and the impact these inhumane actions bring about.
Kiko
Before he got this close and I started questioning whether he was really eighteen months old only, he was up to no good :D
He had tried taking Maisha's share of their afternoon milk. Can you see the warden trying to stop him from doing it? :D
Was quite disappointed when the milk was through without having a taste and the way Maisha (the elephant facing the camera) happily freed the scene seemed to make it worse :D
So he decided to walk past me and mingle with the visitors. After we were all there because of him and the baby elephants.
The David Sheldrick Wildlife Orphanage primarily cares for baby elephants and baby rhinos after they are deserted in the wild due to poaching. He was taken in after getting into a fight with adult giraffes at the Giraffe Manor but that's a story for another day!
Grandma
To encounter age.
This was taken a few days ago.
But it is a representation of age. This white hair stands in for eighty three years. The 'shred' ear is one of beauty. It was a tradition firm in my tribe when a girl was ready for betrothal. The lucky guy was my favourite man in the world, my grandad 💙
This photo also represents my roots and where I am from. It stands in for home. I am named after this strong woman who witnessed colonism first-hand and the liberation of Africa as a whole.
One who seen the different seasons of time and what they can do to a man. She is also the spring my family sprung from!
***Wambuku W.***
In The Beginning...
If we were to sit around a campfire, never mind that in my thirty something years I have never experienced it, I'd be the adult munching on her crisps nervously getting her many words straight.
I stummer while addressing a crowd, however huge or small it is. This is probably why I am so lucky while doing this. It is way much easier meaning I am more fluent in coming up with written sentences than I am in spoken word.
I hail from the East side of the black continent. I am made of colonised blood and was raised in a raided home.
And even with such disoriented roots , words still found a home within my rebellious being.
Here, tales of oppression linger. There are those of a depression too. Inner battles tend to silence these pens from time to time but somehow, the passion for scribing frees me every damn time.
It is the how poetry still has away to free my hidden pain that made me fall for it. Followed with the way it allowed my perverted pens to bask in the beaches of erotica and fall deep in the abyssals of romance.
I have been healed of unshareable pain. Freed of intangible amounts of dead emotional weight. I have been taught of a whole lot of things I didn't know about myself. To me, writing saved my life.
But reading will always come first.
So here's to a timeline full of reflective pieces and prose. One leaking of sensual poetry and romantic cliffhangers.
I am the blackween at your service 💫❤
Looking to understand how read cash works. Would you be kind enough to point me to where newbies begin? Thank you.
Glad to be a part of this exciting community though! ♡♡♡
@Blackween
