IMAGINE A WORLD

THE FIRST ARCHIVES- A poetic journey into and through adolescence

IMAGINE A WORLD

Imagine a world…

Where you couldn’t ask a child what they wanted to be when they grew up.

You couldn’t ask what they would like next Christmas.

Not even what they wanted for their next birthday.

You couldn’t even ask what they wanted for breakfast tomorrow.

Why?

- HIV.

Imagine a world…

Where a child looks back instead of forward

So as not to be too impassioned about tomorrow.

Why?

- HIV

Imagine a world…

Where a child was accepted.

A child was happy, not looking back

And not afraid of looking forward.

Just imagine a world… without… HIV.

- This poem (slightly edited here) was published in TACAIDS, Tanzania in 2005. I was 16 and making my mark as an AIDS activist.

HEART OF THE STORM

For a long time I felt that my soul was in the sky.

I felt my spirit was that bird flying by…

For a long time I felt my heart was red with streaks of white.

I would sense things before they came to sight.

For a long time I knew the sky,

But the sun would hide away

and the moon, the white round eye would not appear.

And things in my world would not be so abundantly clear.

The blue would turn a shade of purples, red and orange.

For a short time

my orange would turn into lime.

Suddenly I would sense a change.

Not good, not bad, but strange.

I would feel nothing but

The heart of the storm.

Behind the clouds of my calm

Would lie a glow.

A colour different from the ones I know.

The heart of the storm,

All of it, written in the lines of my palm.

THE FIRST ARCHIVES- A poetic journey into and through adolescence