at each turn.I keep moving, in honour of you.
I move because life and love surround me,
Urge me on.
Sometimes
I wonder
What you would wish
For me.
26th April, 10h26
Seven times in one day, seven conversations all about you, the all-round impact of you, my little Iman Bongiwe. Many times it was a comment about yearning to connect with you or asking where you are that started the tears. Yet now, a quiet morning after, I feel a release from the intensity of that wound. Me all around you, you all around me, in a way I have not recognized till now. I even project what “ feeling connected” with you should be like. I imagine what sensations, what scenario will unfold. I don't know what form or sign I expect. What evidence am I waiting for that will bring the feeling of being consciously connected to you, my angel? I wait. I cry. I battle to digest the possibility that you never actually left me, that you are an enormous gift I simply struggle to receive. I ache to feel your presence, but then I reflect on each day and see that you have permeated every step.
28th April, 22h45
My lower back remembers. My breasts remember. My feet remember. When I see the thin film of sweat on my forearms, my eyes linger on the hair there. Your fragile forearms were covered with fine hairs too, an obvious beautiful affirmation that you came from me. The air I breathe thickens with memories.
1st May, 12h38
I'm navigating in and out
Of mental combat
Trying to figure
Exactly what station I've pulled into,
How to answer that simple question
How are you?
An invisible earthquake dulls my senses.
I hear myself speak
From a distance,
See their eyes blur in sympathy
Feel their embraces
Even in my suspension
From within the torn earth
Of my body
Which bears your death followed by your birth
Comes a gasp or a howl, or a laugh.
Sometimes I shrink into my jacket.
I wave goodbye and walk away.
There is nothing more to say.
3rd May, 00h05
Tonight I sit in the same Lazy-boy chair that I occupied so often in those last weeks of pregnancy, facing in exactly the same direction, pre-occupied with the same distraction – TV. Hours pass as my chest quietly gets heavier and heavier, till I have to switch the TV off. Silence settles in the darkened room. Finally I allow the sadness to sink in.
27th May, 00h44
I write to keep you alive
I write to resist killing myself
In little do-able ways,
Lose days, dreaming of reunion with you.
I write to cleanse myself,
To release the river of sorrow
That circles and sometimes swallows me.
I write to remember the instants of acceptance,
A stream of light entering my imprisoned heart.
I write to liberate us both,
To continue our communication
Despite your eyes that never opened,
Your eyes that never met mine.
I write so that these words of love and yearning
Live longer than those that have fallen from my mouth,
Praying that you hear me now
Or maybe on some tomorrow
Out of my hands
Out of my time.
I write for women who know this
Unbearable
Unspeakable
Irreversible separation.
The desperation of clinging to sand
On that lonely shore
Where the ocean simply
Continues its rise and fall,
Persistently pushing and pulling us into a new day
Even when we thought we'd run out of ways
To live with this absence.
I write to relive the moments
That were only yours and mine,
To touch again
Your fragile skin,
Your delicate head,
To carefully lift your fingers one by one
Gently wrap them around my thumb.
I write to engrave you in memory,
To mark your place in our family.
I wake at dawn or wait for night
To have that sacred quiet
Where I can be alone with you,
Allowing the silence to open me up
And expose line by line
The feelings and thoughts
Caught in the safety-net
Of daytime composure.
At last I can drop the task
Of choosing when and when not
To mention your name
Of suppressing the impulse
To blurt it out to strangers.
Not lying or denying,
Simply not saying.
I write to run from forgetting,
To
