I AM

I am an ocean; vast and deep. I am a mesh work of fine art. I am an African woman with a global heart and soul. I am an infused energy and a haven of electrified joy and nothing less than pure perfection. My breathe is the thunderous sound that is an African storm, my heart’s every beat is an endless anticipation of the next it is savory at its best, an endless quest, an unfillable hunger, an unquenchable thirst so much it is my undoing.

I am an endless array of chaos. Finding comfort in disarray as perfection is not bliss. If I am perfect then who is God?

I am an organized meshwork. Of emotion and thoughts only God and kindred spirits can comprehend. I make every morning a chance to my ways mend.

 I am that eeves dropper to greatness and I echo it to all who have ears, even though not all will listen.

I am in constant awe of the sun trading places with the moon, a captivating sight that is a privilige to witness.

I am a barefoot fanatic, for who would not want to feel and connect with the very ground they walk on?

I am a lover, pasionate and vengeful with a neverending river of love, live and laughter, though deprived at times, though held back at times in caution, it is a gift and I wear it with pride.

I am a mountaineer, with near magical stride, trudging this steep terrain called "chasing dreams"

I am the tune to which birds sing, the echo in the thicket, the undying urge to be myself but I HAVE TO FIND HER FIRST.

My life is a pursuit of myself. A creature so near yet so far from comprehension.

I am WOMAN

I AM WOMAN

A woman is a savage

feeding on prey 

regardless

her poise, invoking fear in even the filthiest of slithers

she tears up whatever she gets her hands on 

she doesn't need this prey

she can get her way if she wanted to but for her births' honour she will chase after deers and antelopes

A woman is a force of nature

She is the sun that brightens your day 

she is the same Mandera sun that scorches your visage

causing a prematurely wrinkling façade

play your cards well 

and she is the purest brightness in the Maldives

A woman is a force of nature

she is the ever flowing stream of resourcefulness

if it hasn't reeds to weaves

it had fish to feed

She is a force of nature

the rains that nurtures growth

or the floods whose gates betrayal opens

play your cards well,

And she is The New Orleans Fields' irrigate

A woman is a drunk

She is so drunk on life

that passion

she simply does not exist

A woman is pure beauty

Wrinkles, bumps on reddened skin, uncoloured lips, thunder thighs and swaying hips 

THESE DO NOT MAKE  A WOMAN
Her loving them and knowing they form her physique not her being is what MAKES A WOMAN

What is Fatuma's Voice? #FatumasVoice @PoetryHubKenya

MOURNING

Quran chapter 5 verse 32, the death of one equals the death of humanity.

She tore up under the blanket of warmth that the hairdryer provided. Nadia could see from all the way. She raised her well manicured index finger and Nadia almost seethed at her own stupidity. She rummaged her handbag and handed over the hanky. There they were, came out like a river and she let it. Nadia was in awe. How would a girl still look so beautiful even after hour of draining all bodily fluid crying their eyes out?  Even in sadness, this girl had this glow to her. 

There she was again, drifting, being stupid- typical Nadia. Grief did that to her. Saw a friend tear up after a loved one’s demise and suddenly she was an effing eejit. Dum dum.  Break ups, chipped nails, bad hair days- those she could handle but this, this was death. She and death.....

“He is not gone you so i know,”

“What?” Ephy broke Nadia out of her reverie.

“He is going to recover and come back. Things will get back to normal. Won’t they? Tell me they will!” 

Nadia had no decent way to tell Ephy that he was really gone.

 Silence this time, Ephy knew did not mean consent.

TODAY I ASKED GOD

Today I asked God for unconditional love

And it seemed scaringly entitled to ask for something that I in abundance have

And my knees hit the dusty ground

As my hot tears smoked up its loose soil

Like raindrops

Only drying up so fast

Like a Kenyan summer

And my rusty whispers which like rocks that were from the slingshot that is my heart

Hit God’s ears

And I asked God to love and be loved

Today I asked the maker for unconditional love to cure my lonely soul

You see

I have been running

So fast yet on the same perimeter

Going round and round and round on the same square meter

Going back to the point where I begun

And today I learnt it is useless to run

So i asked the almighty for a son so I rest from the exhaustion caused by my flight from loneliness

I ASKED THE ALMIGHTY FOR A SON

To give life

To give my heart

For something worth dying for

As the holy word speaks of Solomon

The story of two mothers and a fallen child

An allegation of death and ownership so wild

Yet the mother

The joy of motherhood willing to forego

Just so the child, though in the arms of another would grow

I asked God for a son

So I too would feel the intensity that is sacrifice

And I analogized to the pain of David

Hoe he asked for pain, stark raving hurt instead of his son’s

His flesh and blood’s pain was his own

Cut him deeper than the sharpest sword

And I asked God for a son

So i feel another’s pain

To bring life to my existence

For fortnights I have wandered

Like a rudderless boat at sea drifting aimlessly to my inevitable demise

I sit and wonder

To whom will I be termed as dearly missed?

I asked God for a son

For I looked at everything under the sun

And found my worth would be found in a son.

INSPIRE, TEACHER

I have always wanted to be a teacher.

As a child, because i loved the way people listened to teachers. Teachers were important people in my eyes. They seemed in my eyes to know everything about everything. Their opinion about things actually mattered and most of all, they commanded respect. "Mwarimu" they called them.

As a teenager, because i just did not like how most of them did things. How they "coerced" student to learn, to study. I wanted to be a teacher so i could spark a "teaching revolution". One that inspired people to learn.

In my late teens, because a teacher saw in me what i do not think anyone else did. A teacher believed in me and nurtured something in me even i never knew i had. She called me to the office that fateful weekday -remember those lines back in primary school? Just like any other highschool "culprit" i started retracing my steps in my mind. Had i dozed off in her class? Did i miss my cleaning duty again? Who was i rude to this time?
To my utter shock, she handed me a book. She said to me,"For a few weeks i will be away on invigilator duty. Read,analyse and interpret all aspects you identify and teach them to the class." And i did. No consultation, no guide book.

Then it hit me! I wanted to be a teacher that inspired her students to have an opinion and not have anyone tell them,"child, that is not an opinion for you to have." I wanted to be that teacher that inspired her students to not just read a text and pick out stylistics devices and thematic concerns. No! Anyone can do that. I want to inspired them to identify with the writer.

You see, writing is the oldest form of art. It allows one to put in words feelings, attitude,conviction towards a person, an object, political organisation, a dog, Mount Kilimanjaro! To be able to feel what they felt when the dog died, even just an inch, to be able to see from the diction, the stress, the style what this gorgeous damsel did to the writing lad, to be able to climb with them the mountain that is Kilimanjaro, that is what i want to inspire my students be.

An author once wrote:"Writing is an art that allows one to dip their pen into the colourful ink that is their soul and to write out their very nature on paper. Writing allows one to bare his soul."

I want to be a teacher, not so i can teach, but so i can inspire my students to look at words and see a bare soul instead of just alphabets.

LOSS

Pat Conroy in his book "My Losing Season: A Memoir" wrote: "Loss invites reflection and reformulating and a change of strategies"

Losing. In terms of work,a loved one's demise or even breakup causes reflection. You suddenly start to think more about your life and how well you should have lived it. In the case of death you place yourself in the deceased shoes. As though you yourself have died and been resurrected. Given a second chance. That trip you've always wanted to take, that job of yours that you hate and so badly want to quit, that girl you adore but never had the guts to tel how you feel.

In a breakup however, love gone sour, friends parting ways, you suddenly start to re-think every decision you have ever made. Maybe if you had paid more attention, given more love, taken more time. You think "If this decision was so bad that it ended so ugly, what else have i made that could in my face blow up?" You hurt, you bleed, you ache.

You are allowed to momentarily feel all this, pain, regret, unsurety but NEVER unworthy, unloved or not beautiful. You are not in any instance allowed to feel not good enough, not pretty enough, not strong enough. You are not allowed any of that because the moment you allow such weak line of thought, you become of the sort.
Pat Conroy may have had a series of losses as quoted in this "best selling memoir" -see what i did there? But he is also quoted saying in this account of loss "Know this, i think you could be special if you only thought there was anything special about yourself."

WHAT TO DO?

There's this thing about choices. I simply cannot stop thinking about them -and i have been doing ALOT of thinking lately. I don't know whether it's their ability to affect our lives, those of our children and their children's children. Or maybe it's their uncanning ability to hold you responsible for whatever befalls you as a result of them. You choose to have unprotected sex, STI anyone? Unexpected pregnancy?? Anyone? Or maybe you choose to call your boss fat over the work phone extension to your "bff" and you get shipped to storage or worse, get fired! Yes, women are a tad too sensitive about choice of words. Maybe if you has chosen to call her "curvy" she might have taken it as a compliment.

We are faced with choices every single day. Some that define us, some that cause undefining moments. Do i choose Dan or Nate? What do i wear to this date? What course do i pursue in college? Extroverts find it easy to consult. I have found myself asking a complete stranger on my way to a date whether the red lipstick is too dramatic. Others find comfort in intuition. Listening to their heart. Maybe they are. Others have a track record of "Good Choices" Are there good choices? Or are they just afraid they will trip so they choose the "safe" path. The one often trodden. Take that job at Barclays Bank to please dad when you know full well you want to start a photography firm?

So after you choose, what next? WHAT TO DO? Well, a good friend of mine recently go out of an emotionally draining relationship. It's not the hurtful things he said but the hurtful things he did. Kissing another girl front of her and sleeping in the same bed a whole night with her might as well have been as painful as a blow to the nose. Maybe it was the things he said, "I love you,you just have to trust me. She's my girlfriend but you're my best friend. I cannot leave her. She has done nothing wrong"
I know what you're thinking, "How could she stay?" The question should be,"How could she not? " How could she not when she had grown so used to him. To share her deepest secrets, her worries, to reveal her weaknesses.

Good news is, she chose to leave. She decided she deserved better and she asked me,"What now? What do i do?" You have already made your choice, i told her. Now, now you hold your head high and VENTURE INTO THE UNKNOWN.

THE PATH LESS TRAVELLED BY

Robert Frost once wrote, "two roads diverged on a yellow road,and sorry i could not travel both"
Just like Robert Frost we are all faced by choices. He chose the path less travelled by and that made all the difference.
We choose everyday. We choose to take ten extra minutes of sleep in the morning before work or class. We choose to take the bus or the matatu to work or school. We also choose who we are going to be with. What we cannot choose sadly, is who we fall in love with. However, we can choose to tell and show them our deep affection. We can choose to move on and not let the fact that they do not reciprocate our feelings the way we want them to stall our lives. We can also choose to stay true to them if they do reciprocate our feelings. We did not choose to be human but we can choose to treat them as so. We can choose to embrace their faults as we would like them do ours. when they wrong us, we can choose to forgive. When it doesn't work out, we can choose to move on.
An author once wrote, the heart has no pain receptors, that it is all in the mind that our feelings have been "hurt" that only means we choose to wallow and be bitter and hurl hurtful things at the "culprits" or that we choose to let the mind be controlled by a momentary lapse of sanity. It is true, some of the things humans choose to do to others are unthinkably inhuman, but thinking of them and hating them and grudgingly speaking of them is a choice that will only stall you. Choose to move on. Choose to be the bigger person always and gracefully hold your head up high and venture into the unknown.
Isn't that what life is about?

Whispers of her soul

She is overwhelmed
she can't breathe
the pain in her chest feels like no other,
like someone stabbed her in the chest - only worse
like they kept her alive just so she can feel the excruciating pain
like they left her alone in a dark room
locked her inside starved of joy and bliss that morning sunshine brings
deprived of the beauty and peace stars at night bring
like they beat her up leaving her wounded and cold
like they stripped her in the middle of African winter
left her in cold desert night at the mercy of snakes and scorpions
like they - like puppet masters make her slap her self nonstop in the face
like she has nothing to live for yet she does
but grief, pain, anguish knows the darkness and deadends
she longs for brighter days
cries herself to sleep because her only relief is that she can whine
that they did not take away
the one thing that makes her
so human
emotion
feelings
she prays for brighter days
no one knows when they will come
but one thing's for sure
nothing lasts forever
clinging on to the hope that it will all end
is what keeps her alive.