FLAVOURS

I’m trying to swallow my chewed-up life. Sometimes life is un-chewable and sometimes it’s too raw, but I’m always grateful even when my tongue is scarred, scorched or left alone and bitter, because each time my tongue is more exposed to different realities of taste and each time it explores sweetness again it tastes better than the time before.

The sweetness fills up the cracks and sores left along my tongues pores. Too much sweetness SOMETIMES hurts and SOMETIMES sweetness in moderation is sweetness truly tasted…

Life comes in all different flavours, in all sorts of combinations; bitter-sweet, sweet n sour, spicy n sweet, salty- bitter, and plenty other nameless ones: deliciously delicious, disgustingly- yuck, urgh and the other in-betweens…

All taste-able all experience-able, feelable flavours, unseen but felt like the wind, feedable to the senses and wonderfully unseen.

Give us today our daily bread and lead us not to temptation, for your bread is divine in all its flavours.

Labels and Lies

A book, a thing which we read from and gather data. A book is neither a weapon nor a shield, yet a book darting towards an unguarded head becomes a weapon.

A book held close to the chest refracts an object aimed at a in this instance it becomes a shield.

A book is a weapon, a shield, an umbrella, a paper weight, a shoe, a pet, a jewel…

A book is not a book, but a book is a book when we see it so.

A label is not an identity but perhaps a lie we chose to believe.

Labeling can be a form of imprisonment because it limits the true potential of an object, being or relationship.

I thank the LORD

I thank the LORD!

Because He has spoken

And I have heard.

I thank the LORD!

For His ever lasting promise

And His never failing word.

I am thankful that he has chosen me.

I am thankful that he knows who I can be.

I am thankful just to serve.

I am thankful for every fibre, for every nerve

Most of all I am thankful for things I have, but don’t deserve.

I am thankful to hear His praises in the church choir.

I am thankful that He rejoices in my making.

I am thankful that He is all I require.

I am thankful He is mine, for the taking.

I am thankful that HE freely gives my heart’s desire.

I am thankful.

I am thankful.

I am thankful.

YOUR ROLE, YOUR PLATFORM, YOUR LIFE FOR THE TAKING

YOUR ROLE, YOUR PLATFORM, YOUR LIFE FOR THE TAKING

I’ve been one to behave beneath myself in the past, as a black woman it saddens me to see other black women still doing so. I see black women barely wearing clothes and changing men like the do their knickers. I’m sure its feasible in a club, but I pity women who chose to live a lifestyle of the imaginary and have empty social lives.

I meet young black men who believe their lives are better in the hands of the street than they are in an educational institution.

I just want to remind us all of where we came from, we as a black people have endured much in terms of history, we are a lineage of Africans who lost out due to slavery. At one time in history we did not have a choice, we did not have the opportunity, we did not have the privilege to do the things and be the people we can be today.

I just want to remind the young people that before they venture out to another day of deliberate destitution that your time is NOW. You NOW have the choice to be the respectable people you deserve to be. For some of you who even have the opportunities to educate yourselves free of charge or under the expense of someone else I urge you to take it, own it because this may be the only chance you ever have.

Let us remember and honour our ancestors and let them truly rest in peace by knowing that their: toil, hopelessness, struggles, beatings, slaughtered dreams and all the injustices that they went through were not in vain because young black people today appreciate and acknowledge and honour their opportunities and responsibilities.

Claim it. Claim your role as that emancipated and empowered young black person that you are today.

AGAIN

It takes time...

It takes perseverance...

It gives hope to an enduring future.

It heals invisible wounds from the past.

It makes the struggle beatable, bearable

And defeatable.

It gives away a stubborn consciousness.

It makes time tread that little bit slower.

It sheds light on truth,

But throws logic out the window.

It allows the heart to emote beyond itself,

Teaches the mind to think past itself.

We’ve all been broken,

Bent and forced to be afraid.

We’ve all questioned why the world is still smiling,

When we have so many reasons to cry.

Courage, Patience and strength,

Are what it takes to love... again.

Dead grey dreams

Waking up in the morning I feel the harsh generated winds land on the exposed parts of my body. I snuggle under the duvet and take cover. Take cover from the living world. I want to go back to my dead grey dreams.

Confrontation of a 13 year old ego

I would keep saying, hoping and praying,

That I would be worthy

Of all His blessing,

His mercies and praises.

I would be whole.

Now I am older, I am bolder.

Lying and fighting myself

Is not the way to His righteousness.

So now I am saying, hoping and praying,

That He let me see how beautiful I already am,

Despite what others say I am.

I am hoping and saying,

Trying and praying

Asking Him to teach me to love me,

To show me why I am.

I’m trying to be happy in the skin

I’m in

I know there’s no point fiddling,

With the features I’m given,

Even if there are others giggling.

T for temperament

In that room, my heart felt almost numb, but my emotions lent like a weaning tree in the wind, towards melancholy.

Sitting on that bed I didn’t know where I stood.

He was handsome; he shaded his warmth with a hard exterior. I was not intimidated.

He was pensive and consumed with insight. My tongue reached out to the swollen words in the air, sucked them in and blew them gently in his direction.

Shortly after I was granted access into the maze of what lied behind those phlegmatic eyes.

|Metamorphosis

... I often melt into my own imagination of who I should be. My ‘potential’ leaks out of every single pore when I’ve dived into the well of my minds eye...

Part of the butterfly effect relies on the theory that if you change one thing in a timeline, everything else changes, but sometimes we need change to grow…

I call this phase of my blog:

METAMORPHISIS

My adolescence in writing comes to a close

please double click on the image to read.

thank you for letting me share with you and for taking the time to read through it all.

“A question - why are we here?

For some of us it’s to depart and say our last goodbyes for others it’s a new beginning.

On behalf of my graduating colleagues, I would like to thank His Majesty Sultan Qaboos for allowing us expatriates to study in this beautiful country and to the ministry of education for making it possible for us to excel in our studies. All our past and present teachers, mentors and our families and friends.

Muscat Private School has served as a second home to me. It’s so much a part of my life. I’ve been here since Kindergarten, when I was just 3 years old.

As I look around i can’t believe how fast time has passed me by. It seems like my first day was just a blink ago.

Writing this speech brought back so many memories, on of which I would like to share with you. It was a time when I had an English assignment to work on during class. I looked at my teacher in despair and uttered “I can’t find the word’s miss”. She drew closer to my desk and said “Charlotte, I don’t care about your IQ, I care about your I can…” Those words echoed in my mind and still do until today.

As I graduate this year I can proudly say that I have “found” the words. I am one of the topliterature students in my class.

And as we, the MPS graduates of 2006 venture out into the world, I just wonder… if we will truly be leaving Muscat Private School, or if our presence and memories will stay alive and echo in our school forever.

I know why I am here… Do you?”

I can’t help but feel a little nostalgic and enamoured by myself. This speech may read very dull but I remember tapping into my inner thespian and bringing on the theatrics! I’m overwhelmed with memories and thoughts, none of which I really want to or know how to describe at this very moment, but I am smiling.

BAR

THE FIRST ARCHIVES- A poetic journey into and through adolescence

Under a straw roof

Over a tiled floor.

Fans swirl above our heads

In attempt to lighten the air.

Lights are dimly lit.

Men surround the bar tender

Hollering orders and debating politics.

Fingers click, fingers point

A dramatic drunken gasp.

One man just proved his point.

Secrets spill,

Jokes are poured

Laughter is released.

Smoke dances to the ignored beats of Jazz

Ladies cackle almost to the rhythm

One at a time.

Time races

Lipstick stains sit on the wine glasses

Long cigarette buds dance in the lonely breeze.

- This scene describes my Aunt’s pub in Daressalaam. My Aunt is just fabulous, a true diva and enchantress. She is my mother’s dear friend and she is one of the most vibrant people you could ever meet. She is dark and petite with a semi-afro, doe-eyed with voluptuous lips. She has a loud laugh that seems to echo all day and you would think with all the ceaseless talking her lips would wear thin but they maintain their voluptuousness. That woman could make anyone laugh and would always leave you smiling and anxious to see her again. Her name is : Juliet, I call her, Auntie Juliet. If life was a stage she’d own the spotlight. This is a portion of what her life looked like one summer evening in 2004, in the city of Daressalaam.

IMPERFECT

I tried, but could not do it.

I stuttered, stumbled

And sometimes mumbled.

Feeling ashamed and so foolish

I hid.

Rying, screaming

And pouting like a kid.

I open my eyes

Only to realise…

I have failed.

I’ve failed you/

I’ve failed myself

I’ve failed everyone too.

I stutter, mumble

Titter, tumble

Stumble, tremble

And finally…

Crumble.

I try again,

I could not do it.

I stuttered stumbled

And sometimes mumbled.

I open my eyes,

To realise

I’m not a failure

Not at all.

It is ok to run,

Its ok to hide.

Its ALL OK because I tried.

I hope in you I can confide.

I’ll tell you a secret…

I’m not perfect

Not always correct, not always the best…

But it’s ok.

- This piece entirely speaks to the place I am now, one of my mentors and favourite motivational speakers, Eric Thomas, speaks of the three stages in life, which are: getting out of a storm, going through the storm and just getting into a storm. Yet he also speaks about rising above, rising above the clouds… so that even when a storm arises you are above the clouds and unable to be affected. In this journey we all outgrow certain phases, it doesn’t mean these things don’t exist anymore we have just outgrown them. I believe that there will always be some form of pain or discomfort or at least the threat of it throughout our lives, but the trick to being and being successful is to outgrow the pain, where the obstacle has not been destroyed, but where a new realisation has been birthed.

High school was not a pretty picture, but I sure am glad that my adolescent years are OVER! All the pressure of wanting to desperately fit in and please everyone was daunting and it took its toll on me. As I grow older I find myself growing more tolerant to the balance of my own imperfections and my ability and willingness to strive to be better (although I am pretty close to perfect!.. …. …. and that lame insert-of – joke just proved otherwise).

THE FIRST ARCHIVES- A poetic journey into and through adolescence