The Joy Scribbles

I am sure in some part of the world I exist as a sin.  Some kind of mistake.  I exist only as all the rules I've broken and all the places I've refused to fit.  I'm sure some one calls me a whore.  I'm sure another calls me a kaffir.  I'm sure someone calls me a heathen.  Dirty. Dirty. Dirty. Dirty. Dirty. Dirty. Dirty.  Dirty black girl.  with no morals.  Look at how she swings her hips existing only to tempt me.  Look at how she speaks. So eloquent. Does she think she could be white?  Smart enough to sit with the boys?  Look at how she knocks back those shots, Look at all those men she touches.  Look at how she doesn't hide?  Nasty. Nasty. Nasty. Nasty. Nasty.  Nasty Black Whore.  Does she know shame?  Shameful dirty nasty little black whore.  Cover yourself. 

him: What's Wrong with you?  Me: EVERYTHING

Sometimes I hear your name in the silences when I pray.  As though God is trying to say, "Its okay hold on to him" I don't. I just let go.   I breathe heavy.  Heavy. Heavy. Heavy. Heavy.  Only on some days.  Only on the days when someone asks about us.  Then, I breathe Heavy.  Heavy. Heavy. Heavy. Heavy. Heavy. So I stay in bed on those days. 

This is not a love story.  One night a really drunk boy sits with a really drunk girl.  They talk about everything.  He feels like she could be the one.  She can't stop staring at his face. they think they're in love.  so a couple of months later he says  "You're my girlfriend" she says yes.  Then one night he says "I love you" she says "me too" then he says, "I don't love you as much anymore so I'm leaving now" so she says "okay" and then she breaks.

Oh darling... I could love you. I really could.  But this boy left with bits of me and I'm saving all my love to grow them back 

“ what the literal fuck are you doing? he is not your home, he hasn’t been in so long that even soft poetic souls know it’s time to let him go. you piece of shit. you never were good at things like this. you think because you loved him, it means he owes you the time of day? he didn’t ask for this. he didn’t ask you to stay. what are you doing? you know better than this. your teeth are knives and you are stone dragon. stop being soft for him. close off your ribs. close off your tongue, your spine, your lips. you aren’t supposed to care like this, like he’s the center of your happiness. why do you gotta be so fucking caught up in him? why couldn’t you just call it quits? what are you doing? why do you even give a shit?" [ Love ] Letters to Myself //  r.i.d

“ i’m not good at being in one piece. i shatter infinitely. i am always ruining something. but you: you see me like i’m strong. like if i held my hands together, i could bond the universe together instead of tearing it asunder.  you look at me with this heady mixture of awe and love and bottomless trust. you, who is so effortlessly kind and genuine and understanding. you, too good for me, too pure and real and full of the bright sun. you look at me like i’m your one. so maybe i can’t take showers with the lights on and maybe most nights i wake up covered in cold sweat and maybe responsibility gives me the same sickness as heights - but for the way you look at me - for you, i will fight. I will make it through but only because you asked me to //  r.i.d

@God I've been praying for answers. Or places. Somewhere to go. Somewhere to be. Something to see.

Words unspoken... i. I love you. ii. Come with me. iii. Or Wait for me. iv. Stay with me. v. I'll miss you. vi. Visit me. vii. God I love you. viii. my heart is breaking. ix. Please. x. Don't leave me. xi. We can fix it. xii. I'm sorry.

You will not trample me. You will not walk past me. look past me.  step over me. over look me. You will not silence me. you will not forget my existence. I am loud. I am big. I am strong. I am.  and I will make you remember me. 

Dear God,  In my next life I don't want to love travelling men.  I keep falling for men who are "In between".  In between cities,  In between women,  In between jobs,  In between. In my next life I want to love the kind of men that stay. As a matter of fact. I wanna be in between. In between cities, In between jobs, In between men, In between. 

You wanna tell him you love him. But your ego has her hand down on your throat. You're somewhere in between I can't breathe and God it feels good. Her hands are finger deep in you. You're trying not to scream his name. So you bite down on your own lips. The blood tastes like regret. You wish you'd called him then. What would you say? 'Hi"? Just Hi? You don't give people an all access pass  and have them just say Hi. Imagine that. The moon looks pretty tonight. "You're right" he says, "It reminds me of your soul." You kiss him. But then you wake. Check the doors 4 times. Stare at the moon through your window. She looks ordinary. It reminds you of your soul. Still can't believe what happened to day. I realized I haven't missed you in four days. But then I missed you. Relapse? I'm tired of missing. Let's start counting again. Stop writing poems. At least stop writing for boys that don'

i. To You.  I wish I hadn't told you secrets about myself.  Like that one about how sometimes after a really long day I run a hot shower just so I can cry.  I should not have scribbled my weaknesses on a piece of paper, folded it sixteen times and asked you to hold on to it for me.  You should have never heard me say "Sometimes I don't believe in myself" And "I believe in you"should not have comforted me.  I should not have made a home out of you.  I should not have walked into you, thrown off my shoes, taken off my pants and bra, settled on your lap and watched a rerun of Law and Order.  You should not have seen the woman I am on really dark cold nights.  No one should ever meet me when I am not "Poet, writer and super hero" No one should see what I look like without a coat of arrogance.  and I definitely shouldn't have worn your faith in me as a coat of Armour. But the way you say "You're Beautiful" mu

How do you know you've been in love? Give me a real answer  I don't know.  I don't know if I really don't know if I'm trying not to remember. Fair enough... Although that's your second favourite response Probably the latter.. I understand why He made me a much better person. I used to be so angry. And when I was with him I came all the way down. You could throw a drink in my face and I'd still be at peace. I remember the first time I realized I loved him. We had spent the weekend at his house. Friday and Saturday.  On Sunday evening we came to my house. He was dropping me off but I made dinner and we watched TV and we had sex and he took a nap and I woke him up to go home and he said he wanted to stay. And it was the 3rd day we would be spending together. All day. And I wanted him to stay and I realized I had never spent 3 consecutive days with anyone and not hated them by day 2.  And I had an anxiety attack and started crying because I knew I

 "but my definition of love is being robbed in an alley 8 times in a row and hoping there’s something about today that makes all of this different. There is nothing logical about cutting off the most important parts of yourself then putting them inside hands that shake, that tremble, that crack like a hatian sidewalk. Four, there is nothing rational about love. Love stutters when it gets nervous, love trips over its own shoelaces. Love is clumsy, and my heart doesn’t wear a helmet. Four, cupid is fucking irresponsible, and I’m tired of him using me for target practice.  Five, I was told that time would heal all wounds. But what exactly do you do on days when it feels like the hands on your clock have arthritis?"

Words are everything. Words give wings even to those who have been stamped upon, broken beyond all hope of repair. —  Samantha Shannon ,  The Mime Order

11:09PM My voice lies every time someone asks how are you today?  "fine" No one has quiet noticed the cracks  You would notice wouldn't you? 11:14 PM "don't break me. "was the first thing I said when you said you loved me. "I wont". So I let myself fall. 11:16 PM Its summer now. The sun seems happier So I smile more. I'm glad its summer. I've been thinking of starting a garden. Somewhere to plant the bits of you I have left. Maybe they'll grow into a man who stays in one place. 11:20PM That's the fourth man who has places to go. 11:25 PM Why am I still here? Why don't I have places to go? This city is suffocating and I'm running out of places to hide in. 11:28PM @God give me somewhere to go.

My best friend says I have no idea how to fall.  He walks a bit too close when I've had at least 4 shots of tequila.  " you don't know how to save yourself. You're going to break."  he says.  And I don't know he is right until a boy says  " I don't love you as much as I used too"  And God I love him.  God I'm reckless.  I fall head first in love.  And I fall all the way apart.  And I break myself on people. 

Dear Boys who break our hearts. Fuck You.

Don't keep your secrets in other people.  Dont let them hold the best parts of you.  Listen darling.  No one will ever keep you safe.  You have to keep your secrets for you.

Dear Diary There is a truth I want to Lie about.  A little secret I want to keep.  About the way his hands fit in mine,  and the way his kisses put me to sleep.  There's a lot of him I talk about.  A lot more that's just for me.  Like the way he smiles.  and the way  he makes me feel.  

They are 14 boys whose names you should remember.  I am 90% sure you know them.  They said they met you one night.  You apparently like to wear black lingerie and red lipstick.  You also like your hair pulled and nipples bit.  Don't you remember?  I told you she was loose, she can't remember all 65 of the men she's fucked.

Dear Favorite place.  I'm coming home in december.  It has been four years but  I remember the way the green of the north is different from the green of the south.  The air is cooler up there right at the corner of Botswana.  My dad called today and said " Hi pumpkin, I'm in the middle of nowhere right in that corner of Botswana"  and I knew he was almost home.  And I know its 1000 Kilometers of not quite so tarred road.  And just 45 minutes of flight away.  But I'll take the long way.  So I can see it outside my window as I get closer.  You see just after francistown you can't really tell.  But right after Nata the worst part of the road you can tell you're in the Chobe.  You can smell it in the air. You can see it in that northern Green you Don't get anywhere else.  And you can see it in the white sands.  By now the elephants have come to play.  I can always tell who isn't from around here by how scared

I heard you’ve been trying to find me in other people.  I was a little surprised when a short girl, who wears her hair the way I do, is my shade of brown showed up on my door step crying.  In between sobs, she asked why her man tastes like me.  And because I like to fix broken things I told her some things don’t go away like the acid of loving broken girls.  “Its just the after taste of 6 years of broken promises”  I said. But God she cried. She cried. So I kissed her.  She woke up in my bed this morning.  She says “ you don’t taste like him”  I was sad to know that all this pain is just on you.  I was kinda hoping I broke you too. 

" On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself – on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger. In the meantime, love represents in its most touching form the curse that lies heavily upon woman confined in the feminine universe, woman mutilated, insufficient unto herself. " -Simone de Beauvoir

Did you tell God about the way your lungs caved in last night when you realized it was quarter to done and you were quarter to failure or pass and You're not sure if you should cry or smile because dammit you can't breath.  You don't like new beginnings do you?  You don't like fresh starts or new things or new people.  That whole process of getting to know,  building routines.  You don't like the idea that you could be good enough. or not good enough. or just below average. or that someone will hold you to their standard. And God you hate mornings. You hate the way the air is colder. You hate the kinda blue the sky is. But no one can hate sunrises so you'd wake up for those. But only if your boyfriend promised to kiss you better when it's done and let you sleep. But you can't help but love the smell of coffee. Black and strong but not so sweet because how else can you stay on team perfect teeth. Teeth whitening is not as big an iss

Dear One Am, No one quite understands why I know you so well. A doctor told me it was insomnia, my mother says I need to pray more, my dad just really wishes I would get up earlier to make him breakfast. But 1 am no one really understands this you and me thing. No one really gets that just after midnight, just at the beginning of the day, is the quietest and loudest place. How many tears have you seen me cry? How many questions and prayers have you heard? How many I love yous have you heard whispered? How many moans have you heard? How many times have you seen me rock my soul into his? How many times have you felt a lovers cold feet settle against his wife's warm feet? How much poetry have you watched me right? How many words did you pick? you're so quiet. So silent. Just ghostly watching all these things. Keeping a billion secrets, almost as many as all the stars I see. Baby, you're my favourite place. No one else listens and doesn't judge.

"I hope you don't mind.. I hope you don't mind that I put down in words how wonderful life is now that you're in my world" Shout out to my muse and all his yumminess.

I had said to my love, I want to be a place for you - a soft place to eat and lie down. I will not interfere, I will be close and I will love you quietly without disturbing. He winced I wound and unwound my mind around it, focused and refocused my eyes on my self To see that I am not just a place. If I am a place to him, I am a jaanamaaz, the clean carpet for your prayers where you will press your forehead and say Subhaana rabbiyal-a laa. This is what women are: clean and supportive surfaces. As he lifts his head to  allah hu akbar,  I will shapeshift into the dome of the mosque and as you greet the angels on your shoulders I will be the concrete sky that absorbs the vibrations floating up to meet me, ameen  humming in my bones. Ameen with a sharp inward breath I will be the bird on the minaret. My voice rising before the sun and as the azaan begins my perch will shake And I will take flight instead of praying I will soar While men on the ground burn their arms building planes and mis

" I am trying not to wrap myself up in you. "                                                          _ a ten word story

I am practicing my french. "et parfois nous nous cachons dans d'autres personnes sans leur dire . Seulement d'être surpris quand ils partent avec des morceaux de nous." translation? "and sometimes we hide ourselves in other people without telling them. Only to be surprised when they leave with bits of us." You must remember to save the best parts of you for yourself

Hello there,  Higher Heights for Girls Organisation is a youth run feminist orientated non-government organisation concerned with the state of young men and women’s relationships with each other and within the community. Upon realizing the number of issues the youth face including high incidences of Gender Based Violence, Unemployment, Teen Pregnancy and HIV/Aids, a group of ten came together to officially register the NGO on December 12th. Higher Heights concerns itself with helping young men and women maintain healthy relationships with their partners and society, are better equipped for the working environment, make mature and rational career and financial choices as well as become better parents. In an attempt to achieve the above, we've began a blog which will become a safe space for young people to discuss gender issues. However, Higher Heights for Girls believes in diversity and will like to invite you to make submissions to the blog. Please find attached in this em

Me and Madam Nina Simone are hanging out this morning. :) Have a good day.

I told you I could do it.  But no one ever believes.  No one believes that girls as small as me can come apart,  can unhinge and stretch far enough to cover your whole world. No one believes I can make anyone and anything taste like me.  Come on darling?  Don't you see? I'm much bigger than you.

Dear Darling, You have convinced yourself that there is nothing more to you than him. But I am here to remind you that he is the stale taste of overnight cigarettes and the heavy presence of vodka on a sunday morning. And you? You are the sun and stars. A whole Galaxy. A swirl of places I could hide myself in. He tried to set you on fire didn't he? He tried to burn down your barricades and when you didn't break he fed you love in the form of roses, wine, Brazilian weaves and luxuries you never needed. He tried to coax you out of your safe room, Didn't he? He tried to fatten you up with insecurities so there would be no space for self love in there. Why did no one tell him you were a volcanoe? And that no one had survived your erruptions? Why did no one tell him that broken boys can't love strong women? Didn't he know? Didn't he see you would break him? Didn't he see you were not the kind of horse that could be tamed? Cause I did. I saw it the moment yo

Before I left everyone told me how much I would love it. How much everything about Cape Town reminds them of me. I loved it... The four days I spent in Cape Town made it so easy to love. She was loving and Sunny and Calm. Ever so calm. And she stretched into forever and I've never been more aware of how tiny I am than trying to see the difference between the beginning of the sky and the ending of the ocean. Everything about Cape Town is so me. From the way people walk everywhere, to how even the traffic sounds like song, to how very few people wear jeans. No one cares about anything beyond themselves. and I went to this place called The Waiting Room where people literally smoke weed in public on a roof and even though I don't approve or condone drug use I found that funny. Cape Town? Cape Town is a barefooted, dreadlocked, skateboarding, shorts wearing hippie. She is tanned and never forgets her shades or lip balm, sometimes wears bikinis as whole outfits, owns two german

Its four Am. Your friend just dropped you off. You have no idea how drunk you are till you dial his number and it doesn't go through. You sob. Ýou hope he chose you.

Don't ask me to stay.  God don't ask me to.  I'm not sure I can say No and  I'm not the type of woman who makes a home out of boys without corrupting them.  I'm not the kind woman who can sit still.  I fidget a lot.  My eye wonders even more.  and I don't know if I still remember how to love a boy without breaking them. And God, you're beautiful. you're beautiful just the way you are  and I know you want to teach me how to make a home.  but no matter how many cakes I bake and casseroles I make  you'll never be enough.  because I have a never ending urge to love a lot more than people.  Maybe if you come with me I'll try harder.  Maybe if you give me a little space to leave, I'll come home to you. maybe, I can think of you as a place.  As a station my train needs to pass through  because if you make yourself a box to put me in  I will burn you.  I will claw at you.  I will scar you.  So don

You are 4 the first time someone uses you to put someone else down. The first time your aunt tells your cousin, "You are dark and ugly and she is light and beautiful. who will love you?" And you can taste the acid in your cousin's eyes when she looks at you. But when her daughter is born she calls her dark and ugly. and your aunts laugh. but you cry. You cry because you've never seen a baby shine so bright. Because you can remember the taste of acid in your cousin's eyes. Someone taught you that you were Dark and Ugly baby. Don't teach your daughter.

"Stop holding your breath and chanting prayers that I do not break myself. " "I can't help but worry. you're asking me to trust a stranger with your heart" "I'm asking you to trust me" "How did that work out the last time?" "I know. I know. I break myself on boys. but you're making me anxious. Just breathe" "I'm trying." You can't help but chant and hold your breath and I just wish you'd breath. Because it's a lot harder to be happy when you're worried your friend is dying from hoping you'll be fine. 

You. It's Saturday night and you're holding your breath. staring at your phone. Hoping that tonight will be the night he calls to say  "I love you. I should have never left" But it's almost 2 am now. You can feel the make up melting off your face. You can smell the undertones of your favorite scent.  You know him well.  His flight is at 6am. He should have called by now.  He should have knocked on your door with flowers in his hand.  You should have been smoking post make up sex.  You suddenly realize he isn't coming and you can't help but try not to cry. 

Has anyone told you that you taste of Sunday mornings? Not the kind after a night out. not the hurling, hurting kind. You know that crisp I just woke up at 10 am with nothing to do but love you Sunday morning? That, "do you want pancakes or waffles? Ice cream or whipped cream? Tea or Coffee?" That, how many movies do you think we can squeeze in between laughter and your moans? That, how many chapters will you let me read before you brush your fingers too close to my inner thighs and I can't help but breath a little too loud for you to ignore? You taste the way a lone cloud looks on a sunny blue sky, and the way a breeze feels rustling through a canopy of trees. Did I tell you that?

Roses i. "you must be suicidal to love her" has been a joke for so long I had begun to believe that my purpose was to break boys. So I have never let one stick around long enough to prove us wrong, but God I hope you stay.  ii. I keep praying I do not fuck this up.  iii. Do Not Fuck This Up. Do Not Fuck This Up. iv. Wild hearts cannot be broken. So maybe that's why I'm not scared of loving you. v. I have met my match. I can't help but laugh at how funny that sounds.  vi. As though I was a puzzle and you were the last piece.  vii. Dear God. Thank you for him. viii. How did I go from one prayer before bed to every time you cross my mind I have to let God know "thank you for the extra help that came wrapped in black excellence" ix.. My flowers are wilting and I want to cry because the only thing that has made me this happy in so long is you. x. They're kinda turning black now which makes me laugh because you did want to get me black

The first time he says he loves you,  you ask if he remembers when you were ten and your dog died.  If he remembers the hug he gave you.  He says yes.  You tell him that was the last time a hug put you together,  and you wish you guys were ten again because 17 is a terrible age to fall in love. 

They will write about you when you are gone.  Sluggish Poetry and Lazy Flung together words  about how often you forgot to tell yourself you were important. They will remember the way you broke yourself on words  and carried yourself on one too many shots.  How you danced on tables and everyone could still see your demons. How you dragged yourself out of bed on Sunday mornings to write about Saturday nights and beer stains and cigarette burns you couldn't remember getting.  And How different that stuff was to the time when you wrote about the revolutions in your mind.  You will not be able to call them LIARS.  You will not be able to say you were not trying to kill yourself all the 6 times you crashed your car.  Only the first.  And they will say R.I.P my best friend. They will download your pictures and tag you.  They will say she was so loving deep inside and you will not be able to show them the monster that was eating at your insides and you will wond

“ his fingers are cold on the white ridges of my hipbones. scar territory, flinch territory, missed-the-sad but-found-the-blood territory. he says, “girls like you are so hot,” and his breath is the desert wind, is a sun i cannot run from, is a waterless river, “you messy ones are always the best ones in bed,” and i actually almost laugh at it last night while the rest of the world was asleep i was lying awake counting slowly back from one thousand hoping that this time i would find the strength to say no to the darkness i am pretty for an ugly girl. i am cute for someone so broken. i am almost worth the high-maintenance, the texts i send in desperation, the food i won’t touch that you spent hours making, the fact i push away literally all of my friends girls like me are so hot. we are red dwarf stars. we are burning up in the sky of your sheets. we will do anything just to stop thinking. we are open fires, we are the forest turning to ashes. we have destroyed everything close