TEEKAY
I am a poet who is interested in writing about identity and vulnerability. Through my poetry I have tackled themes such as culture, race, womanhood and whatever else affects me and others around me.
I was told the first will be the last
This neighbourhood is in hysteria. My husband has not been home for days but I have kept the stellar cold for him. The local mad man has finally found his shoes – he has to return – return to what is not really home but what is comfort. Do not dare tell me they are the same thing. You remember the times he would tell you he cannot sell his fresh honey, because one eye was on you and the other was on his honey – honey. The mothers whisper about you because you laughed. Little do they know this is the purest eye that has scolded you. At least he did not press against you – palm first and then see you.
You let the dust get into your eyes. Strap your baby onto your back with the market’s finest cloth. You bribe the traffic warden.
When you feel troubled, when he comes home that’s when the dust settles. If that ain’t the wildest thing.
We showed up flawed. Left a trail of mistakes. Cried ourselves into dark holes and forgot our beating hearts. Forgot how ripe our fruits were. Called each other sensitive. Forgot that we even had the boldness to show up. The audacity to even make way.
We took up space. Wrote our wrongdoings. Reassured each other that people have done wrong doings upon us. Continued to feel and fall until the narrative fell from our tongues.
And when we couldn’t find the words. And when we couldn’t stop shaking and trembling. We shook harder. Trembled like leaves. Sobbed. We chose not to lie to ourselves. Because the truth is we needed this.
The hummingbird has remembered my name. I think it ought to remember. I mean I did set it free.
Promised it not too much – not too high but further. I told its wings that it should do it’s very best to not behave in the manner I did. I went inwards.
Count your lucky stars.
Anyway.
People have been saying things. They said the last time they saw you – you were doing circles around the parking lot- talking bad about your insides- making fun of your limbs. Gesturing to stay well away but slurping on dark whisky in dark corners. Turning away from almond eyes and soft hands. Building yourself a home and wrecking it havoc.
You were pompous in the way you walked. Flashing emerald and pearls. Rubies galore. Nobody else stood a chance. You still have it. When your hands shake, I hope it reminds you of knuckle brass made of garnet crushed with topaz. Lighting up corridors and choosing yourself. When you call for a nurse you bellow. The curtain never closed.
Your cries fell on deaf ears but now you’re talk of the town. Fools.
Perhaps you are equal parts atoms and whoever whispers in God’s right ear.
“Blessed are those that can take a bite with their mother tongue,
for they can also forgive themselves in multiple worlds.”
The forgotten beatitude part 2.
Blessed are those who have not figured out how to stop the blood.
They do not stifle their war cry.
It was their mothers who warned them there will be days like this.
My beautiful circumstances
“For the longest time I was taught
certain shadows should stay in the darkness.
I have spent far too long trying to make sense of what this is, trying to merge the pieces together trying to love my circumstances.
I have realised I am the closest thing to nature.
The sun absorbs me and becomes darkness, you look up at me in cold breeze and get lost in my stars.
Constellations weaving together revealing my ancestors.
I have begun to believe that whenever a shooting star happens it’s my people celebrating – singing of high praises and sweet goodbyes.
You are yesterday’s “I got through it”
Today’s “sunset”
Tomorrow’s “sunrise”
Ten years ago you were the apology.
At this moment in time you are thunder and lighting.
You have not done all of this inhaling and exhaling to be timid. You are the night sky and everything in it. The victory within your skin is a melody. An arrangement of notes that only a whole orchestra full of rich heavy brass tones fighting with the whisper of a trembling harp could fathom.
Why tame our feathers when we can fly?
Expanding our wings so they are as big as our dreams.
There’s no need to apologise because I have found comfort within the shadows.
And years ago what looked like a flicker is now an explosion.
I have revelled in the shade and all it’s spirits I have danced on tiptoes with them till the early mornings – hid them in between my ribcage.
Letting them savage every bit of my heart that’s left until my lungs were crying out with mercy, until they became way too familiar with the loss of air.
Here I am now
I have spent far too long sitting outside the door, collecting my fears and storing them beneath the welcome mat.
Well I am dusting my feet off, leave the door behind me open. I have no fear.
There I will speak it into existence,
Until I can watch from a distance a whole house full of my regrets collapse”
This time we left unbruised.
Obituary.
The forgotten beatitude.