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Bones, Breath and Blessings (Must Meet)
Bones, breath and blessings must meet
Which one are you?
Which one are me?
Bones, breath and blessings must meet
Which one are you?
Which one are me?
Bones
Here, lie messages from our predecessors
Cosmic energy from our ancestors
Dance gestures and caged-in heart centres
That precede all realms
And seek to compel
Their stories find rest in our bones
Deep into the unknowns
These skeletons that know of memories buried still live within us
Their voiceless songs are varied
While their essence demands to be carried
They seek to shape-shift, air-lift and water-drift
Into a light-filled gift
For the free formed
To be free from
Spineless ways of the world
Bones, breath and blessings must meet
Which one are you?
Which one are me?
Bones, breath and blessings must meet
Which one are you?
Which one are me?
Breath
Everything is breathing
When it comes to the matters of the heart
It is not the heart that gets to decide what matters
It’s you, in your entirety
It’s you in your pain, joy and power
It’s you, in your breathing
See, we breathed together so deeply and closely
That I could taste your pure intentions and heartfelt expressions in the air
And you could taste mine
You offered me a loud kind of love
The kind that gave my name the echo it deserves
The breath of y(our) love gave my heart a beat to skip to;
A moving rhythm to surrender my grip to-
Wards a reason to set my beating heart free to flee
And spread its dreams into our dance
We have a date with destiny
And getting to know her means doing the heart work;
learning how to breathe better;
How to take fuller, truer and deeper breaths
When you breathe better
The world is clearer and quieter
You can hear God when He prays to you
You can hear the things He also needs from you
When the echoes of my beating heart
Begin to fade
The love we share in my breathing heart
Still remains
The language of a breathing heart
Is spoken in inhales and exhales
Through what we allow in and out
When the day ends
Learn your heart
Understand that it is still beating with you
And breathing for you
So, breathe like it
Bones, breath and blessings must meet
Which one are you?
Which one are me?
Bones, breath and blessings must meet
Which one are you?
Which one are me?
Blessings
Release and make space
We are here to retrace
In a body that offers you daily breath with grace
There is always room for depths of death
When a thing dies
It bleeds then dries itself into a burgundy shade of established cries
This is where we rise
This is why we breed new life
Release or else the body will keep score;
Will store the sore
Of all that came before
Release and embody their prayers
Thick with sacred layers of divine favours
Give thanks to what flows
Because as we breathe blessings into our bones
That’s when we’ll know
How to meet our free
Bones, breath and blessings must meet
Poems: Work
My Pen For Its Thoughts
My Pen For Its Thoughts
My pen surrenders to paper
more than I do in conversation
It tells the truth first
and other things later
It knows more about the sore reminders
from before
My pen glides smoother
when it writes about pain
Not because it wants to
Instead, it is filled to the brim with Black ink
that has no space left for untruths
At times, my Black ink leaks as it carries more
than it can humanly store
My pen seeks to understand
what I have kept myself from feeling
Each stroke is an attempt at honesty
To unquiet the quiet
To make known the ignored
So, in search of myself
and my pensive understanding of this pained pen
I will write out of love and necessity
from the bellowing parts of my core
​
My pen has this habit of putting to paper the words
I have been holding and not honouring
This force of habit of telling me what aches;
of writing me and rewriting me
See, this inked pain understands me
yet still begs to further explore
I am still uncertain of who is guiding whom
But I know the words want to be found
Writing is not a mere form
of therapeutic expression
It in itself tends to strip me bare then use me as its therapist,
usually to restore
​
Yours painlessly,
Your Favourite Pen
Poems: Work
A Black Woman's Meal Plan
Poems: Work
Black women eat strength for breakfast
in the morning rush,
when there's no time to warm it up
That one bite is just enough
to nourish what the misogyny has starved us of
​
If we are lucky in the day,
we will see the discrimination and objectification for what it is
and how it is packaged as a sugar-coated treat
And we will say 'No, thank you.'
​
At lunchtime, our bellies rumble for safety
in a world so White and so man
This dire hunger for protection is present at every meal
​
On our dinner plates,
is a large portion of Eurocentricity and what counts as beautiful;
lies and standards we have been fed
Things that tell us we are only beautiful after we straighten our afros
and our words
Bleach our thick skin and our deep histories
​
You see, a Black woman's process of daily dining is different
We eat for mere survival
​
If you as a Black woman ever finds yourself hungry
for safety, for beauty, for space
Devour that strength
even if you have to serve it yourself
The Estranged Guest
Poems: Work
You have repeatedly circled this block
for long enough
You have sped past
lessons along the way
It might be time
to park your fears outside
Walk through the door
and pay yourself a visit
with loving and longer-lasting intentions
​
Ring the doorbell softly,
as innermost you has been waiting to let you in,
to embrace you warmly
and show you to all the rooms
​
Now that the outside
has quieted
and the door is closed behind you,
You're as here as you can be,
it is time to listen
to what's inside
Yes, there will be doors in this home,
in this you,
that you won't want to open,
that your traumaS may have the keys to
But there's also a clarity here,
rooms and rooms of it
and things that have been waiting for your return
​
Here, you can call yourself home
body, mind and spirit
Here is a home that is yours alone
So address yourself with warmth
in this lifetime stay that only ever comes once
Contact Me:
Poems: Contact
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