26/1/14
I was burning the midnight oil. There was not a candle in front of me. Just lights that never wavered. I was wondering what the night might hold. I heard the clock and chimes as the cold wind blew into my house. The bells belonged to my neighbours. I did not sleep a wink that night.

27/1/14
I don't remember what happened two days ago, but I was glad my mind was too tired to overthink. I fell asleep early that night to music I liked.

28/1/14
I had the urge to destroy myself in the evening but a friend brought a smile to my face just in time. She didn't know. I don't know if I was grateful that she foiled my plans. I thought that the worst place to ever be was between ok and not ok. Sometimes I don't know who I am anymore.  Sometimes I feel accomplished just by deciding which way to walk so I wouldn't run into the person walking in front of me. Sometimes I rather not have a family and I can't recall the reason why. I hate the me I do not know, my mind is revolting. I am in this by myself, no one is as hateful as me. I lose my thoughts a lot because my mind never stops running and searching for the scattered pieces. I don't fancy the idea that being emotionally unstable is now a personality trait. I used to show my anger to everyone but not anymore. I just want to be alone and write and write and write and write. Funny how a week ago I was too numb to feel a thing. I couldn't feel and I couldn't write and I did not feel alive. Then there's a sudden realisation that there is so many people around me, I do not fancy this idea. I did not have the intention to get better. I still watch everyone like a hawk, and I realised sadness makes you forget things. I was late for school today. I promised a teacher I will never be late again. I hope I keep my promise.

It's night time now and I am thinking about how I used to wonder how it will feel to step out onto the road and crash head on headlights. I travelled to an old friend's house to lend her a chemistry textbook. She still sounds the same and I missed how we used to laugh together. I passed by the market and remembered how my mum used to prop groceries in the pram and leave me to my own tiny feet. I forgot if I preferred walking, or my mum pushing me on the wheels. I remember how I wanted to leave this place, now I am just afraid I might have nothing to look back on. Sometimes when it rains, I want to go outside. I haven't been out getting close and getting hurt and I wonder if that's a good thing. I have thoughts that replaced regrets and devastation, but it still leads to nowhere. I was thinking, maybe I've suffered long enough to know that things will be okay.

29/1/14
It's been a few days and I still do not know whether to eat blueberries or strawberries. I did not notice the sidewalk cracking. I wonder if I have recovered because I am back to where I started. If you insist,  label me as someone who was too "lazy" to get better. They say to never let anything be your happiness because they can be taken away, but I don't think I ever knew what makes me happy. My dad finally got a sofa today but I liked the feeling of my back against the ground. I get affected so easily, little things change me and I can't recall a time I was ever me. I'm not sure how long I will stay awake tonight. I realised you don't always need a knife to- I am indefinite.

I am clueless as to how I have dug a hole in this concrete ground, 60 feet deep. The dust I’ve been choking on does not bother me no more, layers piling upon my lungs like snow upon an exposed carcass. The slightest upheaval of my chest and tingling in my lungs reminds me that I still breathe. I’ve met scaffolds of bones down here. As I stare into their hollow sockets, I could never figure if they were ever esurient for something I held. They taught me how the ocean is never blue but only a de facto reflection of the sky. They said many mistook the sea for the sky, but never once mentioned the salt that contaminated their lungs-  the impetus that drove their feet 60 steps into the waves. A reconciliation it must have been. I doubt it made any difference, when their hearts were bleeding out; a pity it doesn’t make it any lighter. Down they sank.

I wonder if I mistook these soils for the sky. As I looked up, I realised that the sky only seemed further away. There’s something peculiarly comfortable down here, the little bumps on the walls and contours of the craters looked like jawlines of a new-found friend. The sun is so blindingly high in the sky. I preferred how sometimes I could see the man in the moon- shadows cast by imperfections on the moon’s surface. In the vague moonlight and scrawny silhouettes, the fact that the moon always has a dark side makes it tangible a thousand miles away. Sometimes, I lay on this wooden receptacle discovered upon excavation and gaze at the empty skies with my friend as he tells me what lies outside this trough. Happiness is a pack of hungry wolves and when they are done, you are left with only your marrows. I see things clearer down here, than above where they are smothered by smoke from the trees they burned to the ground. Sometimes the skies are dark with no hint of dusk, sometimes the sky is filled with white nebula; but most of the times, the days are shorter than the nights. But it never gets any darker down here.

I figured I could never mistake this hole for the sky. I was just chasing these broken pieces like I used to chase happiness. I have no idea how I’ve gotten this deep while trying to pick up these pieces that I don’t recognise. But the struggle tells me it’s real, and the pain keeps me awake. They say if you spend enough time with someone, you will fall in love. I guess that’s what happened between sadness and me.

I’m staying here.

Life's a blank canvas and the artist's sometimes not you, but those who once came into you.

Some have sparks so blinding you almost forget the charred mess they made; some have hands so warm you couldn't resist memorising every contours of their palms that you almost would make a replica of them; some leave lines so intricate yet untraceable you wonder if they were supposed to be maps that lead to somewhere.

Learn to draw on your own and draw for your own. Paint all that is intangible and paint all that you that you could hold. Remember that no one could love you better than you do.

1. Perhaps you should reconsider wearing your heart on your sleeves- it is not an accessory. You are allowed though, to hide other things in its place.

2. Some were in it just for a good catch. You could let a heart slide out their hands like a dying fish, but never know if a tendon ever broke.

3. Do not use the term: bull's eye. You never could stand loud noises. You were more of a hunter, than a guns man, surviving on whatever spoils that crosses your path. Please do note though, that one man's meat may be another man's poison. Don't just stomach whatever you find.

4. But then again, a single bullet is all it takes to **** a person. I guess you liked it when these bullet fragments clung onto your insides like a barb, as if you were a lethal weapon to begin with.

5. Are you sure you want to investigate crime scenes? You might find his fingerprints everywhere.

6. Do not look for company. Misery loves company.

7. You are not a gemmologist; people aren't diamonds. Don't treat them like one if you are only going to end up looking for faults within them.

8. Never fall just because someone offered to catch you. You are not going to like the way he touches you. His hands will feel like a million ant bites digging tunnels under your skin; and you might just tear your veins apart by mistake. You will think you jumped into a flower bed but all you can mutter will be “rose with thorns rose with thorns” all over again.

9. When you find yourself taken aback by what you see in the mirror, do not shut the windows to your soul. They said to love yourself, but you can’t love something as hollow as those eyes- there is nothing to fall for. Pick yourself up before someone falls off the windowsill again. How long has it been since you washed these curtains? These cobwebs spelt out really bad memories that you do not have to be reminded of.

10. Do not try to play god. You can’t immortalize. You do not have that big of a hand to hold on to everything that ever passed by. Don’t tire yourself out and tear yourself apart. There are many things that you can hold and break. And if you are going to hold someone’s breath, don’t let go because they might never breathe the same again; the feeling of shards in your lungs should still be as vivid as the road signs that read “U-turn” before unfulfilled promises crashed down on you.

11. Do not take him as another one of your proses. He is not made up of words. He is a person. Remember that.

12. If you love what he loves, you will never love those things the same again when he leaves.

13. Get your feelings clear and save both parties the agony. It should not satisfy you to watch him **** himself while he lights you on fire; these stringers that says “be like drugs, let him die for you.” is just another bunch of filthy decoration.

14. Never. I repeat, NEVER see someone else in him. Never take him as a replacement.

15. Clench your fists till your knuckles turn white and your palms sweat out. Pick up these sands desperately as you might. Never stay with someone you never really wanted to be with.

She hides from her mother
ignores her dad,
she dwells within loss
and all things sad

her stomach's sick in the morning
she doesn't know why,
oh, she locks herself away
to break down and cry

heart jitters -
throat chokes in a lump -
every time her mind strays
to thoughts of her body's little flat bump

knowing what it might be
paranoid about how much it shows,
fooling herself no one will notice
even if it grows -

alas her head swells
sick with clotted disdain
no she can't carry on -
can't carry on with the pain

so up she opens to her parents
tears flowing from both eyes
unmasking the secret
that for months she's disguised

distraught, weeping,
the sordid act now told,
her mother heartbroken
her father disgusted but bold

"There's only one thing to do,"
he muttered with a voice that was hoarse
and down the ****** route of abortion
did they both start to course

her mother weak, pleading,
begging her daughter to think again -
her father furious, saying don't be so stupid
she's only the age of ten

and so Alice had enough
buckled and snapped,
her lust for life
sorrows parasite finally sapped

off the city bridge, into the icy water
did she jump and dive -

now encapsulated within the womb of death,
that keeps both mother and child alive.

~~
Don't get me wrong, darling
Because that's exactly, I do not know how to say
However, what goes out of the home
Rivers, Mountains, Sea
Or beyond the horizon, Any call

You don't make a mistake
I'll be back to whom
So, for a moment, don't misunderstand me
That exotic flute, distant Kans grasses
Even from far away:
From the seashore, I have heard the echoes of another time

So don't misunderstand me, darling
They have relationships with, and you are like me
They are not devoid of love
I give you, borrow from them

For a moment, don't misunderstand me
I bring your pearl beneath the sea,
From the mountains the ancient forms,
The original earthy flavour,
A chunk of drifted white clouds from the autumn sky as a little boat

So, you don't misunderstand me
Where 'll I come back
Where 'll sing their song
Where to lose my soul,
Or will not come
~~
@Musfiq us shaleheen

you got a fast car
i want a ticket to anywhere
maybe we can make a deal
maybe together
we can get somewhere
anyplace is better
starting from zero
got nothing to lose
maybe we'll make somethin
me myself i got nothin to prove

i've been wondering
when it stops
people say it stops
when you want it to
but how do i tell that
to my dreams
when all i can think about
is running up to kiss you
in the parking lot of anywhere
it makes me wanna drink
and say everything
like sometimes i think about
what it would've been like
if i had let you go
when i
was still strong enough to do it
like i never knew hell
had such a pretty voice
like i tried to make it all day
without saying
"wish you were here"
like lately i've been going back
to all the places we've been
to see what it's like without you
it is the worst game
of hide & seek
every time i close my eyes
to count
you just go home
i seem to only wear my seat belt
on days you call
on days you're all *never been better
and i just wanna tell you
how much I hate window shopping
and daylight goodbyes
you just sit there
when you could say anything
you could tell me
you noticed i started drinking again
you could even make it up
you could say you miss me, too
you could say
you missed me so much
that the other day
you accidentally bought
two coffees instead of one
you could tell me
how you've been
without me
that you sleep so much better
these days
without having to worry
you can say what you have
to just don't say leaving
was like shooting fish in a barrel
cause i swear i'm nostalgic
for things i pretended were real
and i swear
i don't want a seance
until there's something
worth bringing back
take me back
to all the places i tried to love you
back to a time
where i knew my name  
without you having to say it

*you got a fast car
is it fast enough
so we can fly away
you gotta make a decision
leave tonight
or live & this way

Home is where the heart is but the heart is a broken place.
          I hate
how loud I must barely scream so that people can see my face:
          I am dark
and this is a time of shadows.

Sometimes what worries me most about us
is not that we are forced to carry guns and **** our own mothers
is not that we are pulled from our classrooms back into our homesteads
is not that some of our leaders feast while we become skinny UNICEF models
is not that if only one molecule of my DNA was different I could have lived without ever knowing how to read even a single word
is not even that the smallest of things can wipe out entire villages in an instant-
mosquitoes, viruses, locusts; slave ships.

Sometimes what worries me most is that
my headphones carry more sounds of strange places
than my heart will ever know-  that not even my brothers and sisters
sold off to those strange places ever knew, as their children are hung off
the trees of Jim Crow and we call them strange fruit, and that
maybe our first president didn't marry a white lady; the white lady might have married him.

Sometimes what worries me most is that for just over eighteen years
of seeing thinking feeling breathing being I couldn't
have ever told you what Africa meant to me past the occasional 'dumela'
to my mother's mother but never, never did I know or now know or will know my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother
because
she can't fit inside the cellular America that I hold in my palm.

And this is why they call us lost.
Because home is where the heart is but the heart is a broken place.

One time, my five year old cousin said matter-of-factly
that black is ugly. In my Primary School days
everyone said I should stay out of the sun lest I get darker.

But
I'm here to tell you that I don't even bother wearing a sun-hat anymore.
I'm here to tell you that I don't cut my hair because to do so would feel like oppression.
I'm here to tell you how vivid and lovely and blessed I do feel to have been born in broken-heart home because at least it has soul.
I'm here to tell you that, yes, I do remember
that time when the whole world knew what to do about ****** and Bin Laden but never could get round to talking about Cecil John Rhodes.
I'm here to tell you that
Today, that conversation starts with a toppled statue.
Today, that conversation starts with my voice.
Today, this conversation starts with a poem which proclaims-

child I am, child I am, child I am, child I am, child I am-
that this is my day. This is my day.

The Day of the African Child.

Sometimes my mother forgets that the traffic lights turn green.
When this happens the other cars pile up behind my back-seat
until I get round to turning my head away
from the window and tell her that the robot isn't red.
Truth be told she does this with her heart songs too.
They suddenly burst into being after past events
pile up and honk their horns and pound on her steering wheel and
cry out to me: "What do your headphones sing that my heart can't?"

Today isn't one of those days.

Today is one of the rare days where
my ears are open to hear her say
that my brother's birthday was today.
Today there are plenty of listless drivers
in front of us going to some nowhere
called somewhere. Today we are
behind as somebody else forgets
about colours in front of us and
Mama gently pedals forward
as the gas powered dominoes
fall back to their homes to see
their children.

I don't know how old he would have been
but I would have taught him how to read.