Box of ashes

It is not so much that I do not recall what was going through my mind at the time; it is what was going through my heart. Sometimes I feel like it is so far but it is so easy to bring the feeling back again. The heart just remembers the pain and all the joy at the same time. They work together see, like veins and arteries flowing to your heart, each needing each other, yet such opposites of each other.

The plethora of memories I have tried to keep alive, are fading like ancient photographs; moments in time, a little evidence of events, if only I could revisit the feeling. The presence is constantly adding stains on the photographs and perhaps one day they will be completely faded with only bits still recognizable.

I never want to forget, but I regret that I have to, as that is what life dictates. We must not live in those memories lest we get stuck there. It steals beauty from today. If today looks bland and colourless, we should fill it with the hope of tomorrow. It might be a beautiful day and maybe it may even rain, but tomorrow you may feel something more genuine than faded emotions that are aroused by a simple song.

It is a day thing, every single day. I affirm to the heavens to bring me an endless joy and I open myself to receiving the joy and joy I have. It is in everything and nothing. It is in me, somewhere but I suppose I would have to shave off some imaginary walls that I have created for my heart.

My heart was placed on a diet. It wants to indulge entirely in feelings but they are futile and feeble. They are like words written in pencil; soon they will fade, even though the writer intended that they last forever. The heart is perhaps in itself, like a child you see; it is pure, without contamination. Its intentions are always clear and good. It needs protection which is why we have to filter and filter what we allow it to indulge in lest we lose it. It is fragile but not futile.

So I recall a time when my heart together with fate led me to the marvellous bliss of drifting far above everyday life. I floated all too well on that bubble and it is a high I cannot find myself with my own efforts. It is a gift, a blessing, which goes on being a blessing long after the source has ceased to exist. So I do give myself permission to reopen that box, let the emotions fill the room, then close it again. I set it back into my cupboard, along with the many other things I have put to death.

Rant: The words that save

Oh the words that saved me from insanity and from my own sanity. Oh words that can no longer stay hidden in the crevices of my heart but pulsate giving me life again. I run along life hoping to get some kind of warmth and hugs and laughter and the laughter grows louder not because I am guffawing but because I myself am laughing at my own inadequacy to grasp the simplicity of life and how it should be.

We release thoughts of poison that slowly consume our identity until we can no longer control the act of negative thinking fuelled by comparison to those we cannot even touch because our brows now touch therefore we are no longer beautiful because we not prim, proper and straight.

Oh but the written word draws us back to that place where we can be us again. It brings us back to the words that God himself spoke to us when he exhaled his breath onto us at Creation. Oh dear God let your word be true, let it trample the whorish thoughts that so easily spill out of our minds, they themselves full of pesticide that seeps through unconscious mind leading us to believe in the sadness of our minds though our hearts speak only joy and vibrate from a frequency basing all we touch from our hearts with love which is a strong foundation that you so aptly described in your good word as a solid rock we can trust each time each the storm threatens our very existence that we may find light in that fortress, that our very minds would remain in that fortress and betray the seductive wildness that leads us to doom.

Sigh.

 

All filled up with no where to spill

How much of us still remains when we have read and read and read all these books. It is great to learn and adopt but it scares me when I adopt a voice, an author's voice in my thinking and in my writing. They inhabit your mind even if it is for that week, but where does the rest of the voice go?

And then you start writing hoping that you can at the least describe your experience with people and the world. You attach words to it, as far as your vocab can take you. You hope your words are important enough to be desirable or entertaining at the least (not ideal). Well it is hard to compete with entertainment, we live in a world of images. Imagination appears to be losing its charms.

I pray words stay alive and the millions of authors and budding authors who also experienced the wrecking power of a good book. Those who opened up their very selves and filled them up with someone else's thoughts and desires. Words are demanding, they desire your mind and your time. You travel to another world filled with these characters and places. You meet yourself along the way, in the paragraphs and chapters. You cry sometimes and laugh too. You laugh along with fellow word lovers.

What my feelings sound like

Corrine Bailey Rae

This is maybe my favourite "Slow Jam" Artist of all times! Her music captures my emotions when I cannot find words to describe them

                                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARFnffnuDQU

Parts

“A muse? What?” he exclaimed with a confused expression in his face. 

“I saw it yesterday, in her journal, there are pages and pages written about you” she replied excitedly.  Her hands were moving erratically as she explained what she had seen.  He looked at her nervously wondering exactly how much this girl had written about him

He bit his lip, deciding between freaking out and feeling smug. “She doesn’t even know me though, how could she draw so much to fill up a journal, a page is even too long, I don’t even know her name!” he laughed. He finally found the humour in the situation.

She stared at him laughing away and after a long pause, she started laughing too.

“It is not you that she writes about, it's the parts of you that are part of her, and the things you do, the parts of her that she will soon find in her whole”, she replied with a sudden straight face.

He looked terribly disappointed.

Why RomComs still matter

We watch these movies, each time a new one is released we drag our male companion to the first cinema we can find. We know what will happen, boy meets girl and then they fight and break-up but by some force of nature get back together. There is usually a scene where someone is running at the airport. We know this. I know this. That fact still does not deter me from watching another and another and each time feeling a glimmer of hope, that someday, maybe today I will meet the perfect stranger.

I did meet the perfect stranger who became very real in my life. There were scenes of our meeting that were so surreal and movie-like. I spent hours and hours replaying and telling these unbelievable stories to all my friends who listened in awe. The truth is, I had spent most of my teenage years watching everything from Titanic to Save the Last Dance and wondered if a Quirky Cathy like me would ever experience that. I experienced more than the light stuff, I experienced some darkness too. While I understand that a bond is far more important than the flashing scenes of “it was fate friend!” , those moments still make me smile. Honestly those are the things that remain as treasures that we can open and reopen again and again. The first time someone surprised you with a gift, picked you up or kissed you while the sun set remains engraved in the warmth of the heart. After the wounds have healed and the anger subsides, we are left with those irreplaceable memories.

Be it cheesy or not, we all have some kind of reel of our favourite moments. This is why I watch and am moved each time. It is not because I am obsessed with the idea of love, but more the possibilities that love can bring. Science fiction or action even romance can show highly unlikely scenarios but only love can make us crazy enough to make them a reality. Or at the least desire to make it our reality.

OMG stop fluttering

"You silly, silly pretty bugs !
those lilies are not for us"

Instant fluttering in my tummy
his presence is adorned with lilies
white lilies
 roses
 sunflowers
he is a good bunch

Shhhhhh!

"We cannot let him know"

I smile quietly
and wonder
if I even warrant that bunch
if I could ever be handed that bunch

I want it so dearly
mostly for myself
partly because their wings fluttered
 while I stuttered
in my greeting
that was only a whisper

I wonder if my whisper will linger
or will I go on longer
in deep hope
that that good bunch will someday be mine!!!

(PS lets not get too carried away)

My butterflies won't come out

My butterflies won’t come out

For anything less than lilies

Or sunflowers

Maybe white roses.

They refuse to be lured by laughter

Interest

Even peculiar strangers.

They sit patiently on green stalks

Laughing loudly

Throwing they beautiful heads back

The kind of laughter that makes you nervous

But its totally powerful and intimidating.

There is no humour about it.

I present them with yellow carnations

And the pretty little bugs wont budge.

“Really ”, they snap.

My mind turns around slowly

Embarrassed looking at the yellow common flower in its hands

It’s sad. It’s heart-wrenching.

The mind thinks it’s time

The heart is almost ready

But my butterflies will not budge.

They were so quiet for so long

I was convinced of their death.

They want beauty.

“We could do fine with these tulips,

Petunias but soon we will need more”

I look to the heavens and ask for a white lily.

God smiles and whispers “Not yet”

“I have been weeding Dad”

“I know but not yet”

I turn around half glad

Half disappointed. 

I blow another petunia away.

Feed your faith

Flee from fear

it creeps in
disguises itself as caution.
"Yes its caution"

until you didn't do it
you didn't do what what you came to do.
You woke up everyday and did everything else
Except what you came here to do.

"what if? oh no!"

I will stay here and watch
watch your dreams wither.
I will watch you conform
watch you  change
change
conform.

"Who am I?"
"Why am I here?"

Now you don't know who you are.
I didn't do it
I asked you
what if it doesn't work
You said yes
it might not work.

now you don't know
Why
You chose to feed me
and let your faith starve.

there's still hope.
*grabs watering can*

Whose are you?

This question has set my paths straight so many times when I go through almost anything. The reason it is so effective is that is only has one answer each time I ask myself. God is always the answer no matter how much doubt is clouding me it remains the same and as soon as I answer, my life is simplified.

This is not to say that I do not go off on a tangent but often we forget in the midst of busy times and we forget whose we are. The goal is to get to a place so hidden in Him that there is no way you can forget whose you are.

So whose are you?

Friday

Never give up, it’s a phrase often spoken and engraved in us, well maybe in me. It is usually served with no terms and conditions. We have things close to our hearts but nothing makes one more eager to hold on, like love. Love is a catalyst for all that already exists within us, a drop of love can set even the most latent of characters to fire. In a moment, you realise your strengths and beauty. You have faith that may move mountains, well maybe just enough to endure a distance between two hearts.

Friday represents that end of a time, working time and unveils more time to rest. I dread Fridays, they represent time I would spend not showing you my love. I wave goodbye to  my friends and classmates knowing I face an emptiness so heavy. It waited in my room, ready to face me, while I plucked up the courage to face it, walking slowly towards my building. The greeting is cold as I open my room but there is a subtle hope that you will come in and change my fate. Loneliness caresses me as I watch my phone hoping to be pleasantly surprised. Every moment you spend not arriving feels like a fresh disappointment. I writhe in bed, fighting to keep the hope alive. I touch my phone to check if it might be on silent; it isn't. You hadn’t called and it is was not the phone's fault. I stare at it longer, hoping somehow it would transfigure into you. I take a nap, but fail to sleep and think maybe I will take a pain killer or two to help me.

Hours later, I am worn out with disappointment.  I am exhausted from hope and loneliness whispers “I told you so”. This cannot be love, a constant cycle of disappointment; I wait for sleep to rescue me from my anguish.  Asleep I feel no pain, you are too rude to visit my dreams too, but this way my pain is numbed for a few hours.

I wake up early the next morning, I carry on with life doing what I do : shopping, working, thinking about you. Suddenly I hear the phone ring and jump to the phone.

 “Is it Thandi?” I heard the guard through the receiver.

 “Yes”

“You have a visitor here”

“Ok, I’m coming”.

Suddenly I’m smiling, but I’m so angry. You late on your promise, but you here, you here to see me. I run down the stairs, as much as I want to slow down, my eagerness to see your face forces me to sprint down the flight of stairs.

 You sitting on the couch, you rise as you see me and I break out into a smile. I can feel how wide it is, but it doesn’t matter, I have been raw with you too many times before. I cannot hide my excitement, I am overcome with joy and want to enjoy you, all of you.

My brain remembers this is the umpteenth time you have broken a promise or been late on a promise, yet you continue to make more.

“Never again Babe”

“You know I hate making you feel that way”

“This is the last time, from now on…”

“I promise.”

 You make them in all sizes. Promises. All of a sudden the joy of seeing you is reduced to the pain that preceded it. Your refusal to share yourself with me fully minimises your aura. Your kiss turns stale on my tongue and you lips feel hard.

The idea of you is diminished by your presence; you are the opposite of your word. Your words slide so smoothly as you try to convince me yet again that your tardiness is no reflection on your affections for me. I fear my love is not making you a better man.

I listen to you drone, I shut it out, pleading with my heart to not believe what my ears were hearing.  My heart gives in and I crack a smile. I will believe one more time that you tried. I know it's not true, but no one watches me like you do and see me as a wonder. I’d say my beauty is quite ordinary but you see my features as though God took a little more time putting me together. In your arms I still feel like a goddess and fragile, at the same time. You reveal patience in me that has been lurking for so long, and release a sensual side of me that I have just discovered. I would happily die in our stillness, in your eyes and in my joy.

Those moments cost me a lot of Fridays. Loneliness and disappointment  became your best accomplice. The element of surprise grew faint as your words began to lack lustre. “I cannot come this weekend” I hear the words tumble through the phone. I believe nothing you speak, I hear you. I used to listen to you, now I hear you. Another promise of your arrival on Friday and my phone becomes my phone again, its guilt free, I do not suspect it of malfunction. I know your promises of you coming on Friday have no substance. A man of his word is trustworthy. You stole my Fridays; you stole the joy of seeing you. You waved the bliss of having you in my face like a mean kid on the playground and fate snatched it in my face.

So I left you, and got my Friday back along with all the other days I spent crying and wondering, sacrificing and organising. I took back Friday and sent you off with love.