I wonder what we will call this decade.

The close of a decade.

What a decade to have survived. 

I have loved; those that loved me back and those that couldn’t. 

I have lost; that which needed to be lost.

I have cried; enough tears to fill dams. 

I have cursed; your life and mine. 

As the decade ends I pause to acknowledge, those that loved with me, those that lost with me. Those that cried with me. Those that cursed with me. We survived together, stronger.

If I lost you in the process; I am grateful. I apologise and I forgive you.

Thank You. 

P.s I am in love with what this decade has made of me. 

My heart shattered countless countless times. I didn’t think it possible to mend the pieces.

This decade my heart grew and encompassed so much more than I could have ever imagined.

My heart is full. The cracks adorned with Gold. 

Wabi Sabi, Niggggaaa!!!

Pp.s I recognise that it saddens me slightly that my dad can’t be in physical form during this time of growth as I blossom. 

Weeping at WEP

‘Dear Iamle, 

This time unfortunately…’

Once upon a time this type of email made me question everything about my employability and my ability to be a ‘successful adult’. When these emails piled up it would result in a spiral and a revaluation and undermining of self, I berated my self. 

I applied for a great creative opportunity which I thought aligned with what I needed. In a realm I thought I wanted to belong to. The misspelling of my name and the ill written letter of rejection made me laugh, the person they were rejecting was somewhat separate from me, I mean it was me who applied for the job and it was me the email was intended for. Aside from the sigh of relief at dodging a bullet, I wasn’t going to be defined by their inability to see me. I knew what I was bringing to that table and was able to receive it with my head held high. 

On the same day I had an interview with a political party.  I gave a presentation that championed diversity, inclusion. Asked how the role fit in with my vision of the future I heard myself talking passionately about advocacy and activism, the need to connect with people offline. 

After the interview I spoke on a film panel, long time viewer first time participant. I looked forward to this. We watched Jesus Christ Superstar and boy oh boy what a film!

I am learning that life is not half as random as we think, things happen for a reason. No situation is inherently good or bad. It is how I choose to react that matters. I must learn my lesson and let God. 

I am learning that on one can add or remove value from me; its not for a loved one, a stranger, a product or a company to devalue me or to pump value into me. Their opinion of me is just that, something that has little to do with my reality. 

I am learning what is mine will be mine with little to no resistance.

I am learning perception is important, how am I framing this experience? What can I learn from this?

I am learning to sit, experience and explore my emotions in their entirety without sweeping them under the rug.

I am learning I can’t open someone else’s package and be upset that the contents are not mine.

I am learning it’s okay to go back to your goals as a reminder of why you doing what you doing and a motivator. 

I am learning that if it aligns it will be mine. 

I am actively surrounding myself within arenas I want to take up space in, with souls I want to learn from. 

P.s - I had initially written this after the interview before the panel. But I typed it days after and the following was written posthumously.

I am feeling things but can’t quite seem to articulate them well, something like pain - I am feeling maybe I am  an unemployable, how can that be? Something like disappointment; I really felt I would be going into January with some kind of official paid paid employment. I experienced the moment, the excitement the relief I felt that. I am not throwing the towel in but I am acknowledging that it wasn’t the idea result. 

The last rejection of the year hit me a little harder, but after some assistance from my friends I realised the answers this company gave me when I asked my questions were trash, these people would have preferred a token I am sure. The lack of support for members of staff were lacklustre, seems I may have dodged a bullet. 

I was insulted when I was informed they liked me so much they wanted me to volunteer, but they can volunteer sucking this dick!

This rejection couldn’t have come at a better time.

I will be taking up space in 2020 mothersuckers, I will be redefining success for myself and living truthfully in that.

Coffee, mate?

I walked into the nearest empty café, its bright mismatched decor reinforcing its emptiness.

The interview I had did not leave me filled in confidence, the receptionist’s cold hello threw me off, but I wasn’t going to let that throw me off. Once inside the interview a wave of anxiety and nervous hit me hard, all the prep I had done out the window. I sounded as though I applied on a whim. 

 I order my coffee. Thinking of all the materialistic things I had given up, my car, my flat, my independence and my job, my space. In moments like this all this sound like security - of course they are - I count myself very very very lucky to have a level of security afforded to me as I seek out ‘this’. Whatever ‘this’ is. 

‘This’ ain't settling though. 

I know giving up is not an option. Admitting when it feels hard, I am learning is part of the process. After failure eventually success comes. At what point of the process do you have to review if what you are doing is what you are supposed to be doing? What other way can I get into these spaces without the rigamarole of interviews? I am aware of what I can bring into these spaces, I am also aware of how much learning I need to do.

I look at my coffee and laugh, its not worth what I paid for it. What is it was I am really looking for? This thought catches me off guard, the bus stop is outside, why hadn’t I just gone home?

A bag full of unspent emotions lay deep inside me. I screamed, I kicked and begged for clarity. 

The only indication, the silent tears that fell, the hand in head and pen in hand. 

Empty public spaces have become the arenas in which my tears flow abundantly. 

I guess I paid for a space to cry. Even if the coffee was WAAAAAACCK and low-key overpriced. 

P.s Should cafés charge the price of a jar of coffee for one trash cup? I think not. 

Never get used to

Calling for you is your daughter 

I look for you 'round every corner 

I need to hear your voice, it's harder than ever before

My glasses left marks on my face

The way yours did after work.

I tried to remember the sound of your laughter 

I know it felt warm and infectious.

I tried to remember your face

Only faint silhouettes remain.

One Saturday I had bugged you enough and you let me cut your hair

The memory once vivid now disjointed. 

Although your sometimes nonchalant seeming responses to my dilemmas irritated me and you knew it, we both knew you were the only one I could call. 

For the first time I am starting to truly understand what it was you were saying. 

Sometimes I feel your presence. 

Other times I NEED to feel your presence so much so that ill formed versions of you appear and scare me in ways you never did. 

I do not understand divine timing, questioning it is futile, accepting it is peace. 

But, I’m doing good though.

Honesty Hour

It's 3am.

Something about this time makes the truth serum seem like a placebo. 

I am going to be honest with myself right here right now. 

I want to first chastise myself for November and the dismal amount of writing, the quantity was trash if I can be honest and did not even scrap what my targets are.

I also hear what I am saying when I say I don't have anything to write about it. But the excuse is not good enough, the life lessons that smell like a challenge from a mile away must be recorded. The inability to see the lesson until weeks after must be recorded. The coping mechanism must be recorded. 

I must be recorded - this is metaphorical you sick bastards, I don't want to be recorded by Big Brother, I want my life to be told by me. 

Too many memories lost to mental health.

This is my shit and I have to hold myself accountable. 

Pps. Alcohol and anger are not truth serums, people just spew anything for a reaction in those states. Some of you lose your shit over that fuckery for nothing. 

Scheduled posting, hello you sexy thaaang. 

Some body like you

'The Brobdingnagian has fish lips', read the ill written graffiti sporadically littered in the art block. I read the first one under the stairs at first break, I didn't know what it meant then; but I understood what it meant. The thin lipped culprits had defined beauty and I had fallen short of the mark.  

'I wouldn't date the Brobdingnagian because of the wide hips and big bum', he said as he kiki'd with his friends who laughed along. I had no desire to date anyway, especially not shaggy haired, dirty looking, dumb boys; but no one heard me when I said 'as if I would wanna date you' 

'You know you are ugly', she said as she reached over the table to grab some party food. My heart dropped in its deliciously dramatic way and in that moment as the music drowned out, I realised this was the first time a black woman, a woman who looked like me called me ugly. If this woman could not see my beauty then the whispers, the writings on the literal wall had to have truth to them. 

I needed more than 'get over it'. 

I cursed the bottom of my belly as I forced phallic objects to the back of my throat, hoping to throw up meals, calories, words and the fat I had consumed. Bent over the toilet with only tears, saliva and self-loathing coming from with me, the words and meals clung stubbornly to my belly.  

'Brobdingnagian your arms are so hairy, something something like a monkey'. Suddenly I was horrified by the way that the black hairs sprouted all over my body, I spent hours every 3rd night ensuring the only hairs I had left on me were on my head and my face. 

In college I finally had black friends outside of family. The high life was cut short when we were informed a group of black kids was an intimidating gang, and had to be dismantled because staff and students were frightened.  

'The Brobdingnagian is the ugliest here' he said loudly and proudly as the circle giggled with him. I managed a faint 'fuck you', the compliance of my white comrades stunning me. I drunk and drunk, no longer in the party mood I snuck out the party room into a room reserved for me. I got dressed, hoodie and all, I was going to leave the minute the sun came up. 'Fuck these fuckers' I thought. I guess I slept because the creak of my door woke me up.   

Something about this situation felt dark, the fear I felt froze me. The light entered the room hesitantly, almost delicately. This person did not say a word and I could taste my heart as it moved to my throat. A weight joined the bed, the smell of alcohol and lynx Africa hit my nose and I knew instantly who it was. I knew it wasn't a lucid dream because I could feel the wetness of my tears and the roughness of his stubble. The desperate need to escape meant I wore all the layers I had, I do not do that. Something made me dress up that night. His inability to reach me deterred him as he got off in frustration after what felt like a lifetime, he slammed the door in anger and I sprung to put anything against it to stop him coming back. No longer able to get into the bed, I curled myself into a ball and cried.  

I cried because I was scared. I cried because I was disgusted, I cried because I did not understand this. I cried because in that moment the truth of my loneliness became apparent, who would be my confidant? Would they agree with the earlier statement, was it somehow my fault? Was it an act of goodwill.  

I was lost, scared and alone. Oh body of mine how you betrayed me. Through the tears I vowed to kill any man who made me feel scared.  

The result of this was the first LOML. Lol. In his arms I felt as though everything of the world melted and I was in a state of treasured quiet. At least I wasn't trying or thinking of purging in those moments. I was instead inflicting pain in small subtle ways that felt good but did not raise suspicion.  

Fuck it I am gonna skip some because I am. Years of this continued, taking up different forms, manifesting in different ways.  

I am better now. Much much better.  

I am experiencing my body in new ways new lights and I find another reason each time to love it unconditionally.  This body a cornucopia of thick lips, thick thighs, hairy chins and scars wrapped in stretch marks, skin so soft the lightest touch causes ripples, is a temporary home for a timeless spirit. A temple I adore and adorn, in ways that feel right for me to. Every part of my journey has got me to this point.   

It's a journey. It get's better, and when it does my god it's the most freeing thing. My body has been constant, through the highs and lows. I am a strong ass woman it is because I had my body with me at every point.  

If my body can survive and thrive after years of a**e, anyone's can too. 

3 am

There is something oddly powerful, beautiful and mystic about the hours between 2:00am to 04:00am. Is this the ungodly hour? why is it called so? Why am I at my most able to translate thought into word? 

This came to me as a visual. 

It was my last dream before waking why am I trying to make it sound cool? It felt important to get it off my chest. 

PRESENTING 3am: 

I am boundless, limitless cosmic matter, wrapped in a finite physical body, having a material experience. I am from love, of love and love. In the grand scheme of things nothing really matters and it all matters. I am an accumulation of ancestral success. The secret my foremothers kept wrapped up and hidden from the eye of preying nosy neighbours. I am the dream my mother shared with my father. I am my sister's keeper, my brother's comrade and my lover's companion.

I am power. 

I am fucking dope.

Ps - I think is about knowing who you are truly. Its about understanding that while yes you are having a material manifestation there is so much more to you in you and it's worth exploring. We are much more than mindless, powerless consumers, we can truly change our lives once we start to understand who we are. 

Pps - 3am I am pressed for the weewee, it's dark, I heard rodent like shuffling and it's on that note I need to go and think of desserts,crackers and whatever dry shit I can find.