Lockdown: Just maybe…(Day #8)

Eight days into lockdown, Baba is home every night ,he shares meals and childhood adventures with us. The fire is his eyes is reignited; lighting up his face. There is no reek of alcohol in his breath, no anger in his voice; and there is no disgust or fear in Mama’s. The void of silence and thick tension that use to consume us, is now filled with laughter ,and proximity.

It’s in the way he looks at Mama, with that stuporless glare of adoration and remorse. Contemplating and regreting his past actions. It’s in the way he humours my little sister’s million questions ,and the energy with which he feeds her curiousity, as if he is just discovering Fatherhood for the first time in his sobriety.

Maybe there is good to come off this lockdown, just maybe this will mark the end of absence, and emotional deadbeats will understand the impact of mere presence. Mhlambe this —enforced time with family and all those that matter—will provide rehabilitation, and we won’t have to lose anymore siblings and role models to the abuse of substances.

Maybe Baba will again feel more at home in this one room slum with us, than at the tavern pits with moral-less scavengers .

Maybe beyond this ,the good will outweigh the bad. And time spent caressed by the energy of those that value us , will help us gain a little bit of humanity, and we’ll look at responsibilty as another way of cultivating empathy .

Just maybe…. ©

Lockdown: One-on-One (Day #3)

We sometimes make prejudiced and imprudent commitments into relationships,clouded by the flare of newly found ‘love’ we deliberately ignore even the most blatant of flaws.

We over indulge on the pleasure, we drown our voices of reason in the flow of emotion . We forget that combustion doesn’t last forever without consistent supply of oxygen and fuel. When the fire finally dies and reality sets in,we are overwhelmed.
We don’t know how to handle it,so we resent them. We push them away ,we yearn for an escape.

“What did i get myself into?” We often ask.

The truth is ,we didn’t pay attention. Blindfolded by own preconceptions and fantasies; influenced by the surge of rippling thrills, we tiptoed around the shards; we watered the cactus ignoring that in its full bloom, it grows sharp spines . We gave in impulsively, not giving it time to unfurl at a natural rate.

Now that we are sober from the stupor, we are terrified . So we hurt our ‘companions’ in self defence and confusion ,or we sentence ourselves—hobbled with the chains of pity—to misery

Negligent…

“How they planned to keep that leaking relationship afloat beats me!”

With her guttural , resounding voice she begins .
In between long tokes of tobacco.

“Now that its submerging,they’re using the children as oars to row away on their single boats in spite of each other.”
©

A Yearning…

Since you left,

my tummy has been a tomb for carcasses of butterflies …. ©

Black History Sunday.

“This fascination with our hair and patterns, the love for creating and beautifying, adornment, jewellery…..this is not new,our great grandmothers sat under grape vines ,beading and plaiting. Our hair is continuous history”

-Gogo

“This fascination with our hair and patterns, the love for creating and beautifying, adornment, jewellery…..this is not new,our great grandmothers sat under grape vines ,beading and plaiting. Our hair is continuous history”

-Gogo