Security Blanket Your brimming eyes offer themselves in a silent plea to penetrate the Red haze and instantly dissolves my anger. You clamber into my lap and I cradle you as my heart Breaks for the one who calls me Mama. My child, I may be able to…
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” – Zora Neale Hurston I came across this Hurston quote recently. For me, it captures various elements I’ve encountered over the past two years: time, rhythm, clarity, purpose, and especially, asking “why?” – a concept author Simon…
In the early 2000s, my father gave me this book: “How to think about weird things: Critical thinking for a new age”. Although I flipped through its pages, I never actually read it – it was either too dense for my teenage mind or I was simply interested in…
Playing small, betraying oneself. And for what? Impressions of security, of doing this and saying that, chalking one milestone up against the other. Expectation checklist covered. All the while ignoring, nay, dreading those beseeching eyes. The ones that bore deep through the vestiges of the soul, demanding, nay,…
We danced. For months on end.The tango, the waltz, even salsa’d it upAmidst the swirling shadows, intoxicated by tuneDaylight? T’was always the dark we cravedGrinding against each other – wanting, denying, no sleeping tonightHeavy breaths in sync, bass tempo till lightStaring. Breathing the other in. Intimate, strange.Enveloped, conspiring; tearing…
Tunisia. A country which has made history numerous times in recent years: as the birthplace of the Arab Spring and for passing one of the most forward-looking constitutions in the Arab world. What price did the country have to pay? Perhaps the trash-littered streets of Tunis give…
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the African Union – formerly the Organization for African Unity – and while much of the attention might have been on the Chinese-built AU headquarters in Addis Ababa where Africa’s leaders gathered for the AU Summit, there was certainly a lot of…
“Some [wo]men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.” – Robert KennedyNo longer at ease.With the can nots, the should nots, the do nots, the try nots…I’d rather stick with the why nots.At least those birth some answers to…
Dear Sister,Being girl. What does that even mean? Could it be making sure every crease in your shirt is ironed out before making an appearance? Or having to absolutely, without question, know how to cook at least five local dishes by the time you’re eighteen? How about not…