Need

Spent.

Strength gone

Body failing me

I’m no longer in control

Building my wall

are these things that are outside

of my fist

my clever decision making

I’m banging my head against them

frustrated that they won’t comply

to my determination

MY strategic plan

I have no words

and my eyes flutter from yours

not one finding room

in my worried head

My world is only a hand span

looming

it is all I can see

the rest is entirely out of my reach

I’m starting to get the picture

that I can’t do this without you

I need your good eye

your hand

your arm.

Hold me.

Friend

I sometimes wonder if the choice I made

was wise

To give up my life

for something

or someone

I can not see

Some may call it madness

and they may be close to the truth

But sometimes when you know

something

you just know something

as if it were a part of you

So I don’t get the verses sometimes

and I don’t understand the rhymes

that people speak

I don’t get the jargon

that is thrown around

like something cheap

I don’t get the lack of creativity

in coming up with words to speak

from the heart

I never did like to stand when I was told

I didn’t get that some people

should be better than me

or that I should work my way

to the top of some…

thing

I know that’s not them

just what they were made to believe

to replicate

to be

But one thing I have always understood

a no brainer

an unquestionable part of life

even in a childish mind

is that Jesus is a person

and I don’t have to capitalize the “H” in he

because he is a friend

that still lives

and he loves me

and he teaches me to love

and I couldn’t care

less for anything else

Ruler God

I have tried my whole life
to squeeze you
onto a ruler I made
impaling your ability
to love me

Not that you are not able
but I think maybe some things for you are really
impossible
like fitting all of yourself
into my 12 inch limit

And because you were so ruler shaped
I shaped myself to fit you
And both of us became
so very small together

But every now and then
I would catch your real size
in someone else’s eyes
or in a picture,
or a song
and I would think ‘can this really be real?
Are you that big?
Do you love me that much?

So I’ve slowly allowed you to grow inside my head
and now that I am no longer trying to
constrain you or
shake my head at you or
box you in or
squish you
I feel as if I don’t know you anymore

I have no perceptions of you
because you have shattered out of that cramping space
and I feel kind of vulnerable now
honestly
So feel free to show me
who you are
please?

And as I learn your language more
I might speak a few words
here
and there
But I feel I’ve talked enough
assuming you spoke like me
So now it is your turn to speak
And I will listen

Our love – One year later…

Our love is defined by the scratches around it, the nail marks inside it, the bruises, the batterings
Our love is defined by the fight it has
the depth of its breath
the hardness of its shell
Our love is defined by the people who lather, grace like honey, layer by layer, onto it
Our love is defined by the tightness of grip
the never-give-in-ness about it
Our love is defined by a series of chords, tying all of you to all of me
Our love is defined by me doing silly things
daily
and you being strong enough to laugh at me
Our love is defined by two pairs of boxing gloves, one for you, one for me
we never let each other get away with the big things
Our love is defined by piles of clothes
and dishes in the sink
that we almost always refuse to fight about
We’ve made a decision quietly between us,
that there are more important things in life.
Our love is defined by the roads in our future
that we’re preparing for now
with small adventures
Our love is defined
Ultimately
by someone braver than ourselves
Someone who believes in us
Someone who loved us first
and taught us how
to walk in this first year
with fumbling baby steps
so that we’re able to fly
into the rest of our lives

For my Sean, without whom the world would be very big and scary, and very small and stuffy. Thank you for your uncanny ability to understand me and for giving me the right to be peculiar. For that, I will love you with all my heart, for all your days.

Book

Hello lovely followers of my blog. Firstly, I want you all to know I really and truly appreciate you. Really, really, REALLY.

So, I’m currently working on a book that has been in my head for 4 years, percolating, brewing, stewing. The characters have been living in my brain for 4 years, getting claustrophobic, banging on the walls of my being, “LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT”. You know guys, I really think this story can work. I want to make it work. And I really think that now is the time to write it. I have been in the WRONG head-space to write for the last few years. I know many published authors will say there is never a bad time to write, they’re right in a way. I have written through the pain of the last 2 years. But the bed of my moods and cries and internal turmoil would NOT have been a comfortable one to develop my characters on. I have started a part time job, which gives me ample time to write this book, and I’ve been putting aside time each day to do so. I have the most wonderful husband who listens to me talk endlessly about character and plot and puts in his wonderful, inspiring, creative ideas.

I think more than anything, I’m telling you guys this, because I trust you. I feel as if you know me, my weakness and strengths. In some ways I just want to tell you my dreams so that I can show you them when they are realised. I have felt your support and love, even it’s just me and my thoughts tick ticking away on these blank pages.

I might add tasters here from the book for you to read, on occasion, if I am not too shy.

So, that is my plan. Thank you for being listeners, readers and friends. I will not neglect my writing here, because it is all of you who keep me going.

 

 

1992-1996

We stayed in the two-storied yellow pealing house with the rock on the roof for

Four years of memories

Four years of make-belief

Four years of cuddling tight on winter nights

Four years of water fights

and daisy chains

Four years of pets

dogs

monkey

rabbits

chickens

Four years of friends

Four years of childish fears

and the knowledge solidified in my small mind

that I was protected from;

 

Fire.

Something unsettled in the night

crackling sounds

smoke

hungry flames and tasty trees

our little family stood huddled on the roof at the end of it all

my heart beating wild beats

Dad was safety, Mom was comfort

Sisters cuddled in one bed

Sleep came soundly

No harm will befall me

 

Leopards.

Loud paws on our roof

thump

Our dogs were in danger

but survived

until later

No harm will befall me

 

Drunken men

Up and down our street

they sung that loud way they do

to be heard through our windows

not knowing the fear they inspired

No harm will befall me

 

Snakes.

Shouts in the night from our rooftop neighbors

Saap Saap!

Two huge snakes waiting

Dad with an axe and a walking stick

Decapitated snakes still slithering

No harm will befall me

 

Holy men.

Wild hair

breaking brown teeth

orange fabric tied around parts of their emaciated bodies

Their search made me nervous

because they stopped at nothing

to get freedom

What if I was what they needed

to be free?

No harm will befall me

 

It was in the two-storied yellow pealing house

that my chubby hands secretly picked

bit after bit of paint

off the walls

in the semi-darkness

and at the same time

some unseen presence

pealed off the fear

from the walls of my heart

and whispered quietly

into my ear

No harm will befall you

No harm will befall you

No harm

Will

Befall

You

1991

A move to a future

I had no hold on

In my blinking, blurry eye sight

I saw a newness I had not beheld

in all my tiny years

I saw the rust and brown and dust

of a city

I saw children like me

begging for food

What world was this that

lets it’s children starve?

I clung tight to the hand at the level of my eyes

this hand brought me here

to look after me

I looked

to my sister

whose eyes were wide

taking in the surroundings

like a cold drink

The dust clung to our sweating faces

We were small and white

in this sea of unknown

I could feel my mother’s mind

ticking through the pulse of her wrist

clinging tightly to her children,

we were all saying softly with our tired eyes

‘take me home’

and my father’s steady gaze

burning bright holes

into the uncertainty said,

‘We are home.’

1995

It was in the age of growth

where all around

contributes

to making you small

or big

or sensitive

or proud

that we sat around

and drank weird concoctions from our village friends

like chicken feet

in yummy broth

It was in the fear of falling

that i learnt to fly

It was in the age of a range of emotions

that I would pick my favorite one

and let it ride

on the backs of my words

sometimes I’d use them to hurt

mostly I’d just write songs

It was in those years

that the smell of firewood burning

imprinted on my senses

so that I am catapulted into

the times when I fit more snuggly in my small skin

whenever I smell fire

I breathe in so deeply

that my breath can take me back

It was a time of little money

and big heart

and squatting on the side of a jungle

so big

that it swallowed up my fears

money was just paper

to be given away

to those that needed a fire

that we could join them

squatting

hands out

eyes burning

happy tears.

 

PC

Have the BALLS

the SPIRIT

the SPINAL BONES stacked strong and straight

Have the GUMPTION

the STRENGTH

Have the JAW to take a knock for honesty

Have the FREEDOM

for goodness sake

Don’t tell me what you should

tell me something REAL

Say what I know you’re thinking,

Say it LOUD

Be proud of your thought

think for yourself

Throw a curveball of integrity

into the conversation

leading to apathy

Say it with your EYES

as well as your lips

Don’t just mouth the words

like some mechanical clone

People need to push up against your SOUND

Rub lies up the wrong way

stop saying what is safe

Try to match untruth

WORD for WORD

with the straight, black, hard line

that runs right through people’s shifting eyes

Be UNCOMFORTABLE

UNCOMPROMISING

Speak your words like a gift to heads starved

for RIGHT

Speak up man

Speak up to the man

Let your speech slam against the grain

don’t be a fool swimming with the tide

give people the PEARLS of your mind

Don’t ever  be blinded

for the sake of a world

without a spine

Say the words

that have been buried deep

under a pile of correctness

and say them

NOW.

 

Grapefruit

Today I woke up one eye at a time. I stumbled to the kitchen blurry eyed. Then, I took the little grapefruit from it’s place at the top of our fridge, and cut it in half. I did what we used to do when we were wild village people. I put chilli and salt and sugar on the plate, and mixed it up. I squatted in the sunny patch in the middle of the lounge, on my haunches like I used to do as a child. Then I took the segments of the grapefruit and dipped them in the mixture. The whole process isn’t complete until you breathe in deep from the bite of the chilli and smack your lips and click your tongue. It also isn’t complete without the ladies in saris squatting next to you, chatting at a hundred miles an hour, while their children run around on the roof in the sun. It’s not complete without the de-licing session that follows, and after that a cup of chai. It’s not complete with just me and my thoughts, staring at a plate of grapefruit.