When the lights turn off

I had an experience, for some reason I am having a difficult time putting it in the right words. That’s weird, me, a writer unable to put something into words.

I have attempted however it’s all foggy. I woke up in the middle of the night and I released all I felt. It was better, I felt better. The context is love affairs and casual affairs. The confusion of what it all means. How is one suppose to act in love affairs and casual affairs. Is there a rule book? Are there do’s and don’t? WTF! So this writing, these writings are split into two

Friendships and love (affairs) Pt. 1

Are like campfires? There only burn if someone keeps putting in the wood.
Wood is like the effort that keeps the fire burning, lets the fire produce all the warmth. It’s not a one person job, whoever is involved in the friendship/love affair is responsible for putting the wood in and blowing the air (is that a pun)

Both these things take effort… from everyone, once one person
is responsible for everything, the putting in the wood, the blowing, the sorting etc. it can
become rather exhausting.

That’s how friendships and relations end, when one person feels like their doing everything
to keep the fire burning but the other is lacking off.

I’ve seen fires go out and others get lit in life. Some fires I was responsible for letting them
die, some I felt like I was doing all the work. There is even the worse experience of going back to try and light the fire that died long ago, to try get back all that warmth, but then when the fire starts warming up you realize the reason you left it in the first place.

I’ve been the bad guy; watching the other person use so much effort to keep the fire burning and I stood there starting other fires on the side. When other fire didn’t work, I’d come back to this hot, warm, burning one. By the time I awoke, I was alone in that fire, the person who kept it alive had moved on.

This brings me to the second part of the writing. I urge you as a reader to find your own meaning here; I have this feeling of sharing these writings as there are, with the feelings I had when I woke up in the middle of the night to write.

When all the lights dim off pt. 2

What goes through your mind when you’re watching all the lights turn off. You watch all the
moments you were a part of disappear? Life basically telling you to move on, that chapter of your life is gone; it was bright for moment but it’s gone.

You watch these lights which are all you or rather moments in your life that you wished could stay lit forever. You start looking around to see if all the lights are really turning off, you run to see if the old lights, the ones you never took care of still work.

Yaaay! this one came on, but the moment an old light comes on, you remember why you
moved on from it in the first place; that light started to mean something else.
You stare at it again, you unplug that light, you make the decision of being the one to turn it
off.

As you make that decision, you then realize why some of the lights were turning off on
you. It’s not nice to watch all the lights turn off, it’s not all of them because there are lights that seem to always stay on in our lives no matter what happens, but there are ones that turn off, all the moments, all you have to do is nod, smile look ahead and work on other lights

Rewind II

Def: To begin again

Let’s rewind

To come back to a moment before you were naked under my skin

Your hands playing a cello on my back

Pause, rewind

To before my chest was the bridge to which your legs were walking on

Bent and crippled like a newly born giraffe

Rewind, pause

Before I left my soul between the sheets of your bed

You captured by sandman’s lullaby

Pause

Rewind

To you being a mysterious book I want to read without licking my fingers to flip the pages

Pause, rewind

Read that last line again.

I want to know you by Reading Lolita in a room were the sun hits my body so well, I get lost in its warmth, or is it just the thought of flipping through the pages of you

Pause. Pause. Pause. Rewind

To you, sitting across me, your eyes trying to undress me

Alas! I love that look in your eyes, like a coin in a mine I can get lost in those big eyes

Pause, Fast forward

To mysterious chapters; canvases so empty God is having a hard time deciding what to paint on it for us

Pause

I am here with a brush, if you want to, please bring paint

I don’t want to wait for God to decide

Pause,

Rewind

Let me tell a writing story

I was told of a writer who took his characters on dates, so he’d get to know them better. He’d literally be driving and engaging in conversation with characters that existed only in his mind.

Writing is an experience, and the word experience comes in different formats

The line “write from what you know” really has deep roots than the obvious literal meaning, at least in my recent evaluation of self.

Many years ago I believe I wrote how each character I’ve created in whatever work I’ve produced has been embedded with me in it. Whether it is a self- righteous character in a community that’s falling apart or a graduate who is uncertain about his future or the country’s future about education or a father who can’t seem to form a bond with his child.

All these characters when put together form what in essence is me, each flaw, each strength separated but in all, I am the one in the park, I am the host.

In this writing however I want to delve deeper into what exactly all this means; the whole idea of writing from what I know.

For example, I once wrote about a wrongfully convicted criminal and their release. Of course I have never been convinced of any crime before, however I did read the story about this person. That reading became my experience, it became something I know, however there was still that sense of who is this person, I didn’t know, and that’s when writing from what you know gets deeper.

I started to wonder for all the years in prison, what did this man yearn for. I tried to think what I would yearn for, but I was selfish, I thought of childish things, but then it hit me; this man who had been claiming his innocence for years, the one person who believed in him was his mother.

So I began there. I looked at my own experience with motherly relationship, how it is, how I dreamt it was, what went wrong or right etc. It was then that I built something for this character.

Writing from what you know means realising fantasies, desires and history of course. All these become tools of what you know. What you know is something vicariously lived to. I put my ear on the table a lot of times, when you’re silent, you hear a lot. These stories people share become roots to something that can have life later on.

I love writing, I love putting my experience on paper, that way it makes it more unforgettable, it exists for someone else to experience it with me. When I experience something beautiful, something intimate, I like taking pen and paper and undressing the experience, when I read it again, it’s like I am reliving it.

Every experience is beautiful, even the ones the we don’t like, at the end we can tell stories about that experience thus in turn someone can say really “oh I had something like that happen to me once” then an experience has turned into something common, a conversation.

So, when you feel like you don’t know what to write or even what to say to someone, start from what you know!

Tranquility

“time goes by so slowly” ~Madonna

Due to many circumstances, one being covid restrictions in China, I haven’t been able to attend any live performances. Let’s all take a moment of silence and sadness for me.

I appreciate the moment

Live performance/Theatre is peaceful. It’ really is a place were you tend to forget reality and be transported into that moment. This ofcourse dawned to be today when I watching a student talent show. I found myself absorbed in the moment, I found myself reminiscing about my days in theatre whether during rehearsals or performance.

I miss that space

In theatre time moves differently in both literal and figurative terms. You are taken in a different world, into the moment or lives of people you are watching, and suddenly reality falls at the back of your mind. Days and months can pass in theatre yet it’s just minutes on your clock, but for that moment, if you are absorbed, you transport yourself to that time, and suddenly you forget the world outside.

The theatre itself is warm, the lights are bright or it’s dark depending on what the work is about. However these effects play with the mind, either making you believe it’s day/night.

How it can it not be therapeutic, it’s a form of meditation for real.

If you come across live theatre performance, even if you’re not a fan, go in there, agree with yourself to get lost in whatever world is being presented to you. Agree that your eyes will believe the light that exist, the period being presented. When you agree to all these, answer the question.

Did you not experience tranquillity?

What makes you experience a state of peacefulness?

Father Figures I

~black
When I was growing up I use to tell myself I grew up without a ‘father’. In essence it’s the person that contributed to my conception I didn’t grow up with. I had a lot of father figures.

In this next series of blog posts I want to list almost all the father figures that I have had in my life. These foreign individuals who have played a role of “father” in my life without ever knowing they did. Media really is a fascinating thing; it can build a person or can break them down. I guess I am the lucky few. So, here is a rather interesting odd list of the father figures in my life.

Jackie Chan Movies “Funny, inventive, none violent (well)”

Being bullied is something most of us fall victim, it’s hard to speak about being bullied when you’re a kid, especially if your mom is a hardworking strong black woman. So you learn to keep quiet and try to survive school life. I chose that route rather than telling mom who would have whipped me for being “weak”. It’s in these moments you need father figures, someone to teach you how hold your fist straight up, or your leg up high for kicks.

Jackie Chan is probably the only non-black person I will mention in this post as a father figure but that he was. I’ve written too many times on how watching Jackie Chan helped me as a kid. It was not only to defend myself but I learned how to use my body for a variety of things, especially for expression.

Being able to love while watching someone fight was enjoyable, Mr. Chan showed me that “running away” is not necessary a bad thing, just puts you in a better survival position and survive I did, not only that, I learned how to get stronger.

One on One “How to raise a daughter”

I grew up with one parent, which wasn’t easy for her I am sure. My siblings and I were lunatics to say. So I never imagined what mom went through, furthermore I could never imagine what if it was my ‘father’ who was raising us.

So watching Flex raise his daughter on One on One was something special; to see all the dynamics, ups and downs of being a single father were a learning curve. Young as I was, I took a lot of lessons from this father. How to approach being a father, to learn from your daughter as much as she learns from you. Yes, of course the young girl was a grown up but none the less there were really good lessons and conversations that happen in that household.

Yes, of course Fleex had support, even the daughter he was raising supported him, guiding him on how to be father. I appreciate you Flex, for giving me good lessons. I appreciate these father figures.

As the list continues to go on, I am sure you might bump into a series or character that made you become better as a person or like me, was able to help you grow. If you have any to share before I post the next blog of father figure be sure to do so. I am a 90’s child, so some series might not be familiar to those who are very young.

Alternate Ending

We’re sitting in your car and I tell you, I love you, but you already know. You know that because you can see the way I look at you, the way I laugh with every muscle in my body.

So this doesn’t change our fate.

I look look at you, holding your hand in mine. It feels so natural, this will not change the outcome of our future though.

I tell you I’m afraid to be with you. I’m afraid because I am in love with you too much and I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it.

If I take you right now to be mine, it will only be you and me on the road ahead. Our colours clash, these man made colours of skin, yet
here is my heart beating for you.

I tell you ours is a dangerous love, a Shakespearean love, only leading to death of each of us.

You already know this though, you’ve told me a million times before in tears. My chest has been a handkerchief to many of your watering eyes.

You already know me and you being together will burn bridges, yet like the moon yearns for her love the sun, you yearn for me too, as I do for you.

Yet, that won’t change the ending. This confession won’t change the ending in stored for you and me.

The moon is bright, the sky is dark and clear. It’s a perfect engagement of dark and white, just like you and I.

I lean in, you meet half way, right at the border were our lips would meet.

I am looking into your eyes, this is something I’ve wanted to do since..

We kiss. I kiss you. We melt in each other. You kiss me. There’s nothing else except you, me, the moon, the dark sky, inside a little car at the parking lot.

The future now changes

Stained

Def. : a taint of guilt :

Dirty, like I haven’t washed in days, I wasn’t washing in days.

Skin crawling with invisible insects, I scratch til I bleed yet I still feel stained.

I feel dirty by the laddered words ‘it got worse and worse’. Each day the night was a repeated nightmare

Repeat, repeat, repeat!

Unclean, no matter how many times I stand, sit under the raining shower my body still feels stained.

I feel stained, I feel drained. My body is chopped up into puzzle pieces, I can’t seem to put myself together nor fit myself together.

If I am feeling like this, I can only wonder how worse it might be for you.

Stained

Every memory of me and you is now foggy, like shards piercing my skins, each time I remove one, another one explodes in the distance, before I blink it has dug itself into my skin.

What was real? What was not? Lines have been blurred, I kneel to the ground searching for these lines, there is no answer there on my knees, just emptiness, stained with silence.

The Male Spec-actor

Def. : one who looks on or watches |One who pretends, but secretly watches.

Welcome to 2022 on this blog were we still talk intellectual bullshit. Oh I’m kicking the year off with an intense topic. Should men not be involved in solving issues that women face?

You know I am here to collect your perspective so after reading, please leave a comment.

Ideas are started by individuals, and then further perpetuated by those (social masses) who agree with the individual. This is not to say the social mass was not thinking this all along, no, it is to say, someone made a point they agreed with all along, and it’s refreshing and releasing when someone does that. So you form/ join the social league.

So, can you take away an individual thought in a big idea? You can’t really. In huge social movements there exists individuals. We resonate with these individuals.

So, let’s agree.

Yes, there are problems. These problems are someone’s fault, we technically know who’s fault it is, but the aim is not to point fingers, because we know pointing fingers leads to some fingers being pointed back.

How do we solve the problem? This problem of men treating women certain ways that are wrong! How do we solve these socially constructed ideas about women either their looks, intelligent and their worth? I don’t know really, but I know including the people who are part of the problem is definitely a good start. Making statements that “they don’t have knowledge to understand” the problens, that won’t solve it. Instead it’s a fire being built by a group of people, and it’s not warming everyone up to new ideas/thinking.

I understand people who shut Asian/White people down when it comes to conversation about race as we note “they won’t understand the problem” I do it too really, I’m guilty, but being guilty though I don’t shut it down completely. I go back to throw a few jabs again to see if they understand, if they don’t I get off the ring and maybe wait I don’t know until when.

I have been a witness of so many ill events/actions caused by men unto women yet it doesn’t give me enough knowledge because I am not in the body, I am viewing it from the other side and that makes it complicated.

I can never be women, it’s hard to even imagine being one. I am guilty that even when I imagine being one, I childishly think of having breasts.

Everyone needs lecturing, of course men need to stop being spec-actors of the multiple issues occurring; Women on the other have to know they can’t come into that battle alone, without some “men” on their sides. Yes, but who are these “men”

My problem is I don’t know where I stand, I am a man, I am probably guilty of many inappropriate acts towards women, some aware of, others not, I just need to be put in a circle of men that need to be educated.

So ultimately here are some questions.

1. Can men, us be trusted to listen without reaction?
2. Are we dumb that we don’t understand women’s problems? Like are we thinking they don’t exist?
3. When the fuck are we going to fix “Black/Coloured people” issues? Why is the race issue always being pushed backwards
4. I’ve said too much

Remember leave your intellectual bullshit, I want to here your thoughts. A link that was shared to me. It was interesting to listen to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmqq9_XTelM

My mother calls me by name.

This image is one of the oldest images of my mom I have. I was shocked at how I don’t have any new images of my mom.

I have never failed to articulate how much love my mom has for me…. Money😂

Yes, my mom would work long hours of the day to earn money, to feed us of course but ultimately, secretly she just loves money. If the sun is Superman’s way of getting strength, money was my moms. Then like any darkie mom from back home, she’s go and buy kitchen ware she will never use. I generally think everyone loves money.

Knowing this fact, I grew naturally afraid to ask mom for money, on the basis of course that we didn’t have much but again ultimately because mom would turn into Gollum “Smeagol” as money was her “precious”. Mom could feel when you touch her money hiding place. She’d call ” I know how much money is there “😂

So I grew up afraid to ask for money in regards to anything. I would need new school shoes, books or whatever, I just couldn’t do it, not that she wouldn’t have given it to me, she is my mom of course she would have given it to me, I think, I just couldn’t do it.

In the beginning of varsity it would get worse. As any students not financially secure, one would run out of certain “essentials” yet still I couldn’t get myself to do it.

My mom would call me asking if I needed anything I would say I’m fine, then she’d say “Thiza, are you sure? “

I’d be quiet for a while, then she’d know that perhaps for weeks I was not properly eating. When I finally got financial support I’d send, as most kids in my day, send almost all the funds to her.

Travel to years later, in this time, this present, now as a stable young… old man, I am financially okay, fuck in many standards, especially my country’s standard, I am now well off, I send money back home as often as I can or as often as someone requires money, yet I have an issue.

My mom fears asking me for money😂

How the wheels of life have turned, not for the better as it seems. No matter how much I tell my mom, it is fine, anytime she needs money I’ll gladly send it to her, she has become that boy I was at a young age, afraid to state when in need.

Yes of course she makes truthful statements that she asks for money constantly, which I don’t mind as long as I have saved for myself.

This is a psychological thing isn’t it. I am living in a reverse psychology world with my mother.

Many months back I had written a blog about black tax, a financial strain we as darkies often suffer from, the fact that you have a family to feed. Often if not planned accordingly this has dire effects on the future, were it could lead to you not being financially stable in the future thus creating a cycle of needing your own kids to feed you.

Fuck me?!!

I don’t know how to get my mom out of this cycle; I mean I agree with some of the facts or reasons she gives, but she is of course still my mother.

Now, what’ story do you have for me when it comes to family and money? Write to me, my ears, or rather eyes are on the screen.

Alien*ation

In theatre the term alienation ‘effect’ describes Brecht’s style of working. As we tend to always be reminded in readings it is taken from the German word….verfremdungseffekt.

Def. Alienation in the dictionary is described as: a withdrawing or separation of a person or a person’s affections from an object or position of former attachment. Distancing.

So I begin to write.

An addict I was, for probably my whole life, to certain things, to certain ideas and certain places.

I am an image of my former self, only those that truly know me can see through the fake skin I am wearing.

I am a reflection of something that has been left behind, or I am an image of a man exposed to the true reality of the world, my world.

I lived in a singular point, surrounded by alien colors, pink colours, colors of all emotions, now I find myself in a room with only a singular light illuminating, it’s not even bright, it fades away like yesterday’s memory.

What did I do yesterday? I was running backwards, chasing a memory of my former self. I found him, me, lying in a land of grass, with his head looking at the sky.

He was happy, I wanted to stay with him. I didn’t want to tell him that the things he loves the most will break his heart. That in time, from now, from this moment he is in, his smile will turn into many frowns.

That he will gain weight, not the good kind, not the one he wishes his skinny body could carry, no, no, no. He will gain weight in his heart, and in his chest it will feel heavy, his heart will drown in his own circulating blood.

His body will betray him. The images in his head will not be true.

I don’t want to tell him that. I want to sit next to him. Alienated from the rest of the world.

I am an alien here, in his memories, but I feel more alive then I have been in recent times.

I feel strange in the future, as if I am a guest in my own mind. In order to feel alive, I have to travel back in time. That’s really shitty!

_Purplish Flowers_