There's history in my hair please don't touch, handle with care.
It's the same as this perfect pigment,
this melanin I wear
Richly rooted in my blood
Whether dark or fair

Sun kissed and kinked in bliss
More love for my 'rough n tough Afro puff'
She shines like the Sahara sun
She smells like the salt of the Gold coast sea.
Theres a hint of the bittersweet seed of the cocoa tree.
Feels like the pillow that holds all your dreams with the dry Harmattan wind brushing against your cheek
She'll whisper secrets of the motherland.... If you get close enough

She holds like Mina
Curls with pride
Falls with grace and integrity.
Stubborn like the struggle of the ones before me.
Gravity defying masterpiece that's just a single piece of me, a reminder of my ancestry.
It's my glory, my covering

Don't take it lightly, don't misunderstand, I'm a work of art so please peep but just don't touch.

© Raphaela Israel Öbeñg

She rested her head against the windowsill, tracing her fingers along the rigid, empty patches of wood where that white paint used to be. Once up on a time.

The little whisps of hair that lay limply at the back of her neck became startled as the cold from the windowsill carressed her cheek.
Her eyes turned to the night, where the sky nursed the stars. Pockets of light screaming out into the blackness, before fading into the day. As her mind began to drift, She wandered what promise lay behind those diamonds of light. What would she find if she took that blanket of black by the corners and shook it. What would she see.
The girl sat there, her finger still tracing the chipped paint; running after her lingering thoughts. She sat there untill that familair flame grew bright, bleeding night into dawn. Morning came. the dew settled once again.
Fresh from the heavens and as she turned away, her finger stopped. She breathed a sweet sigh. A sigh filled with secrets, covered in beauty. Then she stretched her legs over the side of her bed, the crack from her toes an unapologetic symphony that her feet sang having spent the night bunched up cross legged by the window. Walking across her room to her bedroom door, she reached for the handle, turning it slowly, opening the door to another day.
Another day painted by mercy and given by grace

     © Raffi

I long for the touch, warmth of your skin. I yearn for my own. A prized possession more than diamonds and gold.
Cover it with the sky’s eyes. In my mind’s eye, a wonderland painted with chaos in stripes of coloured confusion in all its distorted beauty.
Come with me to my wonderland. Be my fairy-tale.

To the twinge and twinkle of the stars we’ll sway our bodies together in harmonious defeat.
Light up my dark with your smile.
Fill my heart with your innocence.
Paint my walls with the honey dipped harps hidden in your voice.
Soften this sedative of insanity with your love. Dancing in the night. Space filled with emptiness.

Two single souls favouring the stars in melodic motion.
Spinning in the heavens spotlight.
The passion of a thousand burning suns hidden between them.
My escape from madness.

But like a rose; prominent in beauty and tenderness, it withers away.
Crumbling at the hands of immortality.
A symphonic sigh clawed from her sentiment dried lips.

From ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

Life did not live on in wonderland.

No escape from my wonderland

                        © Raffi

Silence with its ‘s’ that stings.
Holding you captive, bound your wings.
It burns into the pit of your soul.
Hungry for your words of wisdom
In this cold, loud silence fear is planted.
A single seed that will grow into a tree,
Bearing fruit of anger pain hate and jealousy,
Consuming you inside and out. Silence is a thief;
It comes not to sow but to reap.
To rip the foundation from beneath your feet. So I say to you

SPEAK.

             © Raffi

In the black canvas of the night, bleeding light,
Brightness trembled at the movement of her fingertips.
Five rods of flesh and bone soaking up promise that lay in the sky smiling down at her.
Beauty luminescent within the night.
She heard a voice say; don’t let your hands rot and wrinkle with the weight of broken promises
But allow every inch to be fulfilled.
The power is in your hands and its disposal at your fingertips.

          © Raffi