Thursday, October 26, 2006

To My Children

To Simi, Zack and Tara
The three beautiful children I dreamed of all my life,
Mummy wants to say she’s really sorry.

Simi the strong responsible one looking after her younger siblings
Zack the debonair rogue with a sensitive side,
As he has an older sister to respect and a younger sister to protect.
Tara the mischievous and irrepressible
The very likeness of her mother

Please forgive me
I should have taken better care
I started off on the right track but I lost my way
I was the good girl
I didn’t smoke, take drugs or sleep around
I was focused on learning and working hard
To become a wonderful mother able to support her kids

I held my mother up as an inspiration
I learnt from her mistakes
I swore never to let a man determine my fate
Or ever have the power to abuse my children
I also determined to develop her strength and compassion
And strived to be half as beautiful on the inside as she is

I thought I was on the right track
I got a good job and was earning money
I had an active social life and many friends
At times, my demons would torment me
And my insecurities threatened to overwhelm.
I threw myself into work and developed new interests
I became good friends with stress and had less time for life
I also took up drinking and neglected my health

The warning signs were there and I chose to ignore them
I put off facing the truth till it kicked me in the teeth
Life forced my hand, I had to face up to the consequences
I have no fear of pain, suffering or even death
I just feel an overwhelming sorrow of how I have failed you
It distresses me to no end that I did this.
I ran away from my problems when I should have faced them bravely
And now it is too late

Motherhood, that sacred concept of life,
Has now been denied me.
The very process my body was made for
That body I have now ravaged and destroyed,
Through neglect and lack of care.
I had soo much to show you and soo much to impart.
I couldn’t wait to suckle you at my breasts
And hold you all in my arms.
You my beautiful wonderful children that I soo looked forward to meeting
How I would have loved you soo.

Please forgive me.
Mummy has cervical cancer and the doctors need to operate.
This means that I can not have children
And you will never come to life.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

He took my call

This is very cheesy I know but I think its cute enough to work.

He took my call

His phone was meant to be off
It was in the midst of the lecture
He was sitting in a crowd of people
He took my call

The phone made a disturbance
People started muttering
He was going to divert it, but
He took my call

Our collective “aaawwwws” reverberates
Our cheesy grins are mirrored
I thought of him and called to say hi.
He saw it was me and took the call.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Letting Hope Go

As I sit here trying to do some work
Fragments of past events and highlights of our relationship
Brush past here and there
Like waves rushing to lap at my feet and running off again

Fleeting hints of the levels of emotion you took me too
Wrapping me in a cocoon of nostalgia
A rich and moist history shared
Memories pulling at my heart strings

I have decided to let you go.
No. More like the decision has been made for me
Hope of reconciliation in some possible future,
Died in her sleep last night

Even if you break up with her today
There is no more US to come back to.
I thought you would always love me
It never occurred to wonder if I would always love you.

The times we tried just being friends
Always at the back of my mind
I tailored my shenanigans
So you wouldn’t use them against me should we get back together

Even in the guise of friendship
What you did to me was despicable
It took a while but I forgave you
I figured it made us even

Your attempts to re-instigate our friendship are sweet
It soothes the pain of the day you made me cry
The day I realised I really loved you
Also the day I realised I had truly lost you

I can still think of you and smile
You will always have a special place in my heart
I’m not letting go of our friendship
I’m letting go of the possibility of US.

The Act

I wrote this some time ago - one of my migrating poems - when I was in the midst of a major upheaval which as you can imagine I wasn't too happy about so its a bit disjointed but that also serves to re-create how disjointed I felt.


The Act


Not fine (Part 1 – Rage)


Time has past and I should be over it
But I am still not ready

Platitudes don’t work
They only serve to fill me with silent rage
Don’t say it was for the best
Or everything happens for a reason
Or better yet, things will turn out ok
Those thoughtful, well intentioned phrases
Really those empty meaningless condiments

No it’s not ok and it’s not going to be ok!
If they were they’d be ok by now
Nothing has changed
My life is still one big mess
I am still chocking on my anger, my shock
My sense of this isn’t real, this isn’t happening
Not to me
Not me of all people
Why me?
WHY FUCKING ME???????


Put Together (Part 2 – Despair)

Self pity rains all around me
All I want to do is wallow and revel in it
I am soo tired of the pretense
The constant keeping up appearances
The never-ending “I’m ok, Really I’m fine!”
The “don’t worry about me, I’m doing great!!!”
I exert more energy reassuring everyone I’m ok
Than I do actually trying to feel good.

My body is wound soo tight
It is literally tearing away from stress
It is a constant battle to hold everything together
I cannot afford the luxury of breaking down
I find myself alone in a ring of loved ones
Yet I’m the only one holding me up
If I fall to pieces who will put me backtogether?
All the kings men couldn’t put humpty back together!


Interlude

The show must go on!
I am the regular Friday night Charlie Chaplin
There I go cracking jokes and making folks feel good
Pls ignore the silent tears tracking down my face
All part of the show, It’s what I do – amuse and entertain
If late at night I wonder, why can no one really see me?
I understand it is a case of – the queen is dying, long live the queen!


Lost Little Girl (Part 3 – Pain)

Hush! Can you hear her?
Listen, there she goes again…
Am I really the only that hears her cries?
Sometimes it is quiet sobs of hurt
Other times, big scalding wails of pain,
Piercing screams of rage

She cries cos nobody can hear her
She fills my ears with her emotions
My every waking moment feels like a cacophony
I try to drown her out with music, laughter, words

She demands to be heard
Only then will she quieten
It seems I am the only one with ears to listen
I am scared, fear she will take me over
I can barely hold on to my wits
Yet she cries on and on

I know that if I listen, I will have to take responsibility
I will have to fight her battles and slay her dragons
I am scared because I don’t have the right weaponry
I look around me but no one can help
It seems self-motivation is the only tool left
But how can I wield it when I have lost all sense of self?
And so, I ignore her and carry on day to day
The little girl inside me continues to cry
Unnoticed and unloved.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

It bothers me

It bothers me
I thought it didn’t
I even went as far as to push them together
I’ve always said I’d never hold anyone back from finding true love
Just because it didn’t work out with me
Doesn’t mean it can’t work out with my friend

It bothered me
When she called and told me of their first kiss
Unplanned, it just happened
I was silent for a while
But I smiled gracefully and gave her my blessing
Go for it, I encouraged
Do what you have to do

It bothered me
When I saw them together at the party
The secret smiles and furtive glances
The constant touching and holding of hands
I thought stuporific drinking would blind my eyes
It loosened my tongue instead

It bothers me
That I loved him and he loved me not
It bothers me
That I strove for ages to be what he wanted and failed
It bothers me
That he wants you and it is soo easy
It bothers me
Because I feel I wasn’t good enough

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Ode to friendship

Tessa was my best friend, closest confidante, the works. Women tend to have different friends for different purposes - we tend to spread our probelms between all of them. Well she was it for me, I told her EVERYTHING. She was the person who knew me the best. We would talk 5/10 times a day. If anything of interest (however minute) happened, she knew about it. And vice versa. This poem expresses my feelings now - 2/3 years after our friendship dissolved. The reality has been altered and exaggerated but the emotion speaks true.

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She was my bestfriend, damn near my sister
So where did the love go?
Where did the years of intimacy go?
Where did the “I’ll be there through thick and thin,
I’ve got your back, you’ll always be my girl”
Where did the all the trite, clichéd, but beloved sayings we take for granted go?
We used to know each other’s thoughts
Read each others expressions
Damn well finish each other sentences
So where did the understanding go?
That unconditional love that is given to family
Which ultimately understands and forgives all
She was my bestfriend, damn near my sister
A lifetime of closeness
That should count for something right?
The decades of making plans
“You will be my chief bride’smaid,
my children have a godmother,
the kids will go to Cool aunty’s house to play,
At least you’ll have a lawyer to cover your shady malpractice suits”
Where did all that go?
How can the future that was mapped out and covered in such minute detail
The past that was so heavily engrained that it bled with tears, laughter, life
How did all that disappear?
Wiped like it never was,
Smooth like a distant dream
Was it all a fig of my imagination?
Did I truly think that we were so close?
That our countless fights and make-ups just strengthened our relationship
That all the emotional angst we expunged
All the tears we shed together,
The anxiety over this and that she calmed or I dismissed
The fears and issues we banished and overcame
The “I’m your rock and your mine”
The “absolutely no guy can come between us even if we both like him”
How could all that fucking go?
She was my bestfriend, damn near my sister
She picked me up from the blackest depression
I damn near saved her life from her disorders
Her name was my first thought for anything
Her imprint was stamped all over my life.

Now it’s faded.
Why is pointless to ask
I know now that I was mistaken
Miscommunication is bitch
An even more traitorous one when it clouds the purest intentions
What hurts most is that she’s fading.
I don’t think of her anymore,
She just doesn’t feature on the radar!
How am I still standing, surviving, living?
How can I not need her in my life?
How can I not want to tell her the minutest detail of my day?
How can I not want to share the latest major drama in my life?
How can I not even think about her until someone mentions her name?

This is an ode to friendship
Sometimes it ends. Sometimes it doesn’t.
I mourn our friendship but I don’t miss her.
She was my bestfriend, damn near my sister
I loved her. I no longer do.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Love's Departure

An oldie but a goody. I'm in the process of transferring my poems across. This was one of the first poems I wrote and is one of my favourites. I wrote it for a friend whose boyfriend was moving back to Nigeria permanently. As she has no intention of ever living there, this was basically the end of their relationship; even though they still loved each other.

Love's Departure

My lover is going
His body is still here
His mind is ever constant
His smile still warms my heart
His clothes still hang in the closet
His arms still hold me close
But still I know

My lover is going
The future looms ever close
What was once a distant thought
Is an ever louder strumming pulse
A beat of impending sorrow
An ever-rising tide of panic
Marring the last vestibules of our time together

My lover is going
The only thought constantly running through my mind
Our last moments forever tainted by the taste of tears
Attempts to memorise his face
Poignant kisses stored for future memories
The feel of his hands forever imprinted on my body
An overwhelming sense of futility possesses me

My love is going
The pain is lessening
The ache is easing
The nights are shortening
The chill is thawing
The pictures are fading
Thoughts start to drift...

My lover 's gone
Love is really gone.