Because of Ten Beautiful Angels.

Let us pretend I am not drafting this at work.
Let us also pretend I am not typing this when I have a very serious Cost Accounting paper that I am not 100% ready for in a few hours.

LOL.

Anyway many years ago I was a teenager.
I was going through the most horrible time ever. My father was battling cancer and I was battling being a teenager.

So let me take you down memory lane.

Remember seventeen?

All that major identity crisis you were going through trying to figure out who you were and who you weren't?
Remember trying to get good grades and how you would float through Chemistry classes because you failed to see the relationship between the Haber Process and your aspirations of being this kick ass poet/dancer/Dj? Remember wishing logarithms would just DIE( refer to my point on how you failed to see how it would make you a better artist)?
Remember that boy you spent days and  cold boarding school nights dreaming about( though you never admitted this fact to you friends)?
Remember always struggling to know the latest songs and movies just so you had something dope to tell your friends about during lunch or that boring Business Studies class?
Remember moodswings and communal cramps( the latter applies if you were holed up in a girls' boarding school)?
Remember borrowing skirts so that you looked your best everytime you had a school event( read funkie) somewhere to go to?
Remember the nightmares your beautiful African locks gave you that time in the middle of the term and you had massive growth and it felt like you needed a rake made of steel to be able to comb your hair?
Remember skin breakouts?
Remember the punishments you and your deskmates did because of being caught noisemaking every other day?

I remember that.

But I also remember praying a lot. I remember sneaking away to go and cry my eyes out at the school chapel when I got this sinking feeling in my stomach and I was worried and I did not know who to talk to. I remember faking smiles. I remember the first day of a new term and how everyone was all excited after a great holiday but I had to fake smiles because I left someone in North Wing room 3 and I was scared to bits I wouldn't see them again.
I remember faking smiles because I didn't know what else to do.
I remember nightmares; the end that I dreaded.
I remember sweet dreams; things going back the way they were. 
I remember going home and lacking sleep on my first night because the house felt so damn empty.
I remember stress eating.A lot.
I remember the darkest poem I ever wrote.
I definitely remember these words from Iris...

”... and I don't want the world to see me
cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything is made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am...”

Sad music.
I remember secretly staring deppresion in the eye.
I remember resentment because people around me were hiding the truth and struggling to convince myself they were trying to protect me.

But in addition to all that, I remember laughing a lot.
I remember coming back after a moment of crying and laughing like an idiot. Like I was stoned. Like a stoned idiot.
I remember those crazy parties we had at midnight, which by the standards of parties outside the confines of your little cubie are rather lame but by high school cubicle standards were the shiznit.
I remember doing some stupid dares.
Really stupid ones.
Dares that still make me laugh when I think of them.
I remember poker tournaments.
I remember not winning.
Ever. 
I remember staying up all night talking about random things and losing poker games.
I remember 'our mail'( again only those who went to a single gender boarding school can relate to this phenomenon of getting a letter only for it to be read communally by your homies).
I remember having a dance named in my honour.
I remember doing this dance much to the bewilderment of normal people.
I remember how stupid this dance was.
I remember discovering a part of me I loved.
I remember people loving me for this part of myself I loved.
I remember loving these people that loved this part of me that I loved.

I remember my first real bffs.

I remember how though at seventeen I felt like I was going to break because of the burdens I was carrying, I had people who gave me something to look forward to every morning after a nightmare.

See a few years ago, I was a teenager. I was going through the most horrible time ever but God sent me ten beautiful angels to get me through those uncertain days.

I will forever be grateful.
Always.

PS.
This piece was inspired by the first bottle of yellow nail polish I ever bought and May 22nd, a day I somehow can't forget because it is the birthday of one of these Angels.
Happy Birthday.
Hope you still love yellow.

♥♥♥♥♥

Darkness Song

Dark days have their song too
Their notes the sighs of steps of a sojourner struggling to make her way through paths
Where the sun seems to lack signs of rising any time soon.

Sadness.

Is it an emotion or way of life?
Is the anger a reaction or an expression of state of mind?

Only the Creator can answer that.

But the creation can bear testament that the darkness does exist.
Masked rather deceptively behind forced laughter and fake smiles.
Sometimes the lie becomes so believable
The world begins to fall for the fallacy.

But the truth remains,

Everything is not okay.

Open letter to a role model

In my inexistent self actualized state,
I spend my days penning lines in the hope that they'll come out as enlightened as yours.

Reality.

In my living state as a sojourner struggling to make sense of life,
I steal moments in between what I am actually meant to be doing
And spend them scrolling through your works.

Captivated.

In your words my undocumented emotions come to life.
As well as my dreams.
The thoughts that haunt me in my lucid moments.

Intellect awakened
or as you so poetically phrased the feeling
darkness illuminated,
It's amazing how newly found truth becomes that nagging voice behind every action once insight is gained.
My ignorance exposed.
Sometimes the truth makes me feel naked but like an addict to his fix,
I come back.

That’s how I am convinced you are a hypnotist.

In your words I found inspiration.
In your descriptions I realized story telling is a vocation
So it follows I fall in love with every piece of purely poetic logic I find with every revelation.

Precious Philharmonic Poet,
In your poetry I discover my passion.

My deep rooted desire to give another mind the same intoxication
each piece of yours gives me.

And though I understand your desire to travel light through a world filled with freedom of noise,
I hope one day I will be able to access my archive of well articulated wisdom.

In my living state of a sojourner striving to make sense of it all,
life,
I am a self confessed addict of the arts
So please come back,
My bulldozing dose of elegantly elucidated prose.

M is for Motivation.

I tend to have a lot of 'have to' days. Days when I have to go to school because I can't miss that CAT or because if I miss anymore hours I will miss doing the exam and no one likes re-takes. Days when I have to get out of bed because if I don't my cat will starve. Days when I have to go to work because missing is just out of the question. Usually it's because I'm tired.
Physically; I've only had like an hour or two of sleep.
Emotionally; heartbreaks, PMS etc.
It all makes me hate the sun for faithfully rising and making me face the world. So I face it. Life.Just because I have to. And you know how I feel at sunset on a 'have to day'?  Worse. I achieve nothing. And I hate everything.

Scenario 2.
I also have my 'want to'  days. I wake up and I want to go and listen to a lecture for as long as I have to. I wake up and I want to see nature and spend time time with my cat. I wake up and I curse at the traffic because I really can't wait to get to work. How I feel at the end of the day is pretty obvious. I feel as if life is beautiful and is full of meaning. I don't know what makes me wake up like that though. Maybe a nice dream the night before. Needless to say these 'want to'  days don't come very easily.

Anyway the point I want to drive is that there is a difference. When you allow yourself to do things out of obligation, life becomes a chore and it lacks meaning. But when you do things because you love them, life gains meaning and slowly you find yourself fulfilling your purpose.

Everyday when the sun rises it gives you the option. To live and shine bright even through the darkest of clouds or to hate the world and hide as you live a dull life.

The choice is yours. Not everyday will start out as a sunny day but when you wake up you need to act like you know the clouds will clear up.

You can either take life as an obligation or a golden opportunity.

A billionaire was once asked what his motivation of getting out of bed every morning was and he said he does it because he wants to. He was living out his passion and though he was wealthy he still did it because he loves what he does.

I do admit I am going through a bit of a de-motivated phase. Getting up every day is proving harder than it should be but this month I am on a path to bloom where I am planted. So every morning I will try to wake up and be thankful for the gift of life then live it not because I have to,  but it because I want to. It may be hard but we'll see where it takes me.

Happy new month everybody:-) :-*

Sunrise Chasing

It's worth doing any day.
Every day.
Rising while the world around you is dead asleep,
Braving cold showers so that your eyes don't dare shut their lids.
Just to catch a glimpse of that lone hill standing isolated in a background of golden plains stained purple by the morning rays.
Just to see that mountain obscured by a smoky cloud commanding attention in the background.
Just to see a landscape so surreal it takes your breath away.
Literally.
Because when that beauty hits you,
you are left speechless.
Blank.
Awed.
For that one moment you perceive something more powerful than your problems.