We weren’t ready.  When our youth clenched its fingers on to our soft heels that had yet to walk the earth, we decided to walk the hard and abrasive surfaces instead.  We walked and walked until we bore cracks of shame; shame of where we’d been. When nostalgia came knocking on our doors so as to remind us of where we were coming from, we ignored. We treated our memories as outcasts and told them they weren’t pretty enough to form a part of the story that is our lives. We bitched and moaned, looking for substance in emptiness and pretence. We rid ourselves of all that pertained to the people we were becoming and ran in the opposite direction, towards what we deemed nirvana. We ran around and danced to a façade that was the handpicked soundtrack to our lives...

F**k that. I wasn’t ready.

Sometimes you have to hit rewind and remind yourself why the fuck you fell in love in the first place.

© Tsholanang Motuba

Looking at you, looking back at me.

Did you hear about the broken heart on Calamity Lane?

It couldn't fathom the source of its pain. It had been bestowed upon it before it came to know the very concept of feeling. It knew not that it once loved; it had only been there to face the repercussions of this supposed great love. "How is it that you can have all the pain in the world and no love left to justify it?", thought the heart. The heart struggled to figure it all out, then it came to realise that it's nothing without its counterpart, Mind.

City lights illuminate the bones of those who are too dark to know...
Know of the power that is innate in them...
Emotional loadshedding
Only shedding the load is what they're truly dreading
For they are proud men and women
Once scathed by the abrasive
Once influenced by the persuasive
Too damaged to dream to live
Settling for making a nightmare out of a wonderful life
Consumed by their self imposed plight
City lights; there to supposedly "guide you home"
But too much pride exists as a result of the plummet from the throne
Call it "throne back"
For now they're too focused on what it is they lack
Instead of reminding themselves of what they've been given
A clean slate, a chance to be guilt ridden
Forbidden fruits in the form of sharp suits and photoshoots
With feet far from the ground
From which they continue to uproot
So as to levitate to a state of "far gone-ness"
And so neglected becomes the concept of one-ness.

© Tsholanang Motuba

Getting lifted.