Fros and Combs

In the age of weaves and wigs and many other hairdos flooding the market, a normal basic afro seems primitive to some people or rather inappropriate for a "21st Century female".

Its washed, its clean and even combed sometimes. So I wonder what is wrong with kempt natural kinks. I find no fault. Some are quick to say "Do something" , something like what, for who and why?

Do not get me wrong. I am not against any extensions or alterations of ones hair. I have been there and done that and will probably do more to my hair as I please...be it a chizkop ,perm, relaxed, synthetic weave, Brazilian, Peruvian , even heard there is Egyptian and most of all my own natural kinky hair.

But at this point in time I am happy and comfortable with my mufushwa. I do not intend to cut, plait or do anything to it but to let it be.

An attack on my natural hair is a blow to my being. I am black, I am African , our hair never grows out of our scalp straight. If you tell me my hair is too kinky, I catch feelings. It is simply disturbing to say the least. It is no different to being told your skin is too dark you need to lighten it.

In this so called "21st Century" we can't be having such in-independent school of thoughts. This is a world of choices but of cause  its a world governed by rules though the rules should not deprive one the privilege of being true to themselves. How honest can I be to myself if I can't stand my own skin, if I can't stand up tall with kinks on my head. Of what nature will I be if my own natural being makes me uncomfortable? Only a free mind can accept authenticity and I am independent.

They say a woman's hair is her crown and we all know crowns are for Queens and Queens live to protect their interests and their most valuable interest is their crown.

So let me be.

Heather Dube©

SECRETS TO THE GRAVE

The day is gray and cold as the faces of the mourners. Dry leaves fall from the nearby trees as frequent as the widow's tears. The wind is blowing the voices of the funeral singers to the grave in grieving hisses. Silence has befallen the atmosphere. I sit snug under mother's wing. She keeps sniffing and heaving sigh after sigh but still, I do not understand why. All the faces around me are unfamiliar to my memory. I have never met these people before today. I must say, they all look awfully sad. 

The pastor takes his stand by the foot of the grave. Another sermon, I think to myself in dismay. I could be kicking ball with my friends if it weren't for my father's funeral. So I sit tight and listen to what the man of God has to say about the deceased. He clears his throat with a cough, “Beloved brethren and sisters. We are gathered this morning to give farewell to Jobe Dhliwayo …” he started his speech and lost me at “Jobe Dhliwayo”. So that was his name, Jobe. That means I'm not a Moyo like mother but a Dhliwayo on the portrait by the graveside. I look at the picture once more and shiver. Its not that cold but the resemblance is inevitable to the familiar face I see every morning in the mirror. Thrills can't help but take a trip down my spine. A piercing shrill from a seemingly disturbed woman in black dress draws me back to the pastor's eulogy. I'm sure she is the widow.

I thought funerals were all sad and discreet, but the women behind us prove it is a good place to brew gossip. From what they say the deceased and the widow never had any children. No wonder she is grieving this much, she has no souvenir. Some elderly women comfort her to calm sobs; her wailing had disturbed the pastor.

“He had been a good, kind loving man…” the pastor continues. I'm pulled back to my thoughts of this stranger mother says is my father. A good man who has never sought his son? What good was he if he never bothered to be part of our lives? What loving man never marries a woman he impregnates? “…like a plant sewn in good land he had strong morals and a good foundation in the Lord. Like we all know some trees yield and some don’t. Jobe was a fruitless tree but his efforts of hard work flowered in other areas of his life”, I can't listen to more. I do not mean to steal the show but it seems no one in this funeral knows about me. Not even the pastor or the widow.

He must have been ashamed of me and my mother. They think he was barren,” a fruitless tree” yet I am here at his funeral. I look at mother; she is crying her sighs have turned to sobs. I'm more confused. I do not understand why a woman who had never told me I had a father would seem to care at his funeral. I storm away from her embrace to the trees in tears. Mind you I'm not grieving this stranger's death but hurt he never cared. She comes after me to console me and I blurt out “i hate him”. Mother weeps and shocks me once more, she had never told Jobe about my existence. He did not know about me and is laid to rest with the ignorance of his fruitfulness.

                                                                                         

                                                                                                            by   Heather ”ZebraDaughter” Dube

STALE APPLE (version 1)

Set ablaze are raging fires in her womb
devouring her uterus
as shame of her daughter's indecency eats away her humility.
Pangs of disgrace pound on her honor
knocking down her parental guard to powder;
the remains of her rotten umbilical cord that bares a stale offspring.
She wonders where she failed.
If its the fault of how she rears
or maybe they grow their on tails by design.
Alas a disgrace has befallen her virtue.
What pain it is to watch your princess's crown melt on her head
when you never seized to glorify her purity.
but still the womb will not deny its produce
even when it defies it.

SCARLET SCRIBBLES

The words I utter
My soul's cry
My heart's plea
These words I say to thee
My will granted to be
These songs I sing
a song of grief
a lullaby to the thief
that stole my life and sold it to the slayer of dreams
a phantom to haunt thine's peace
These stanzas I write
 to let tears flow with ink
Scarlet scribbles of blood
in  handwritten mental wars I am made to think
These verses I recite
In plight of my fate
painting bloodshed and massacres
in the heads of my victims my audience
 ordained to listen to my ongoing battle with my lyrical pen
scribbling scarlet notes on wounded pages

..the world is a dump site full of sh*t but good things grow on well manured land, plant a good seed and turn your world into a flowered one full of blossoms unless flowers make you sneeze real bad like me, you can grow food instead.-Heather 'ZeebraDaughter' Dube

ONCE I LOVED SOMEONE

Once
I must have loved someone
Twice
They rejected me.
Then
He had loved another
Now he loves them still,
But he led me on
Though
I never became his.
Either
He felt something for me
Or
He felt nothing at all.
Once
I loved someone
Never
Did he love me back.

SO SINGLE

I'm happy when I am alone
but it gets boring at times
when i want them they are not there
when i get them
they all come at once
all of them
some not even worth doing
but most
they make me swoon
argh...why me
now i have to chose
pink pinky bonky
do i really have to chose
i wont chose
i don't want to
okay fine i lose
back to single again

THE ORATOR

Raised in the city of kings.
I claim my throne of royalty
With ink as my spear
paper as my shield.
I claim my space in the world
to be heard.
I express myself
liberate my mind
I share my thoughts
I explore the depths of my imagination,
the turmoils,
the pains,
the smiles,
the laughter.
I tell stories
maybe told by others
but not told my way.
Take this journey with me
as i scribble through the wars of literature
leaving signature trails
on empty pages,
Claiming my rightful throne.
The Orator

INTO THE DEEP...

Into the deep I plunge
insearch of a thin streak of light
cutting through this darkness
blinding my sanity.
Into the deep I wander
through empty spaces
and crevices furrowed by misery.
Into the deep deep deep and deeper
I lose myself.
Darker it gets in this abyss
dimming the little faith I have.
Fading is my luminous beam
erased to haunting shadows
blending with this pitch darkness.

In too deep
lies a thick stench of oppression
ready to suffocate each breath i take.
Unforgiving and so dementing
is this fathomless pit of depression.
A bottomless gulf
were winds of anger whirl
corroding the walls of my mind,
were once sweet memories lay
have been eroded to a delusive debris.

In this realm,
a domain of catastrophe
thunder rumbles with tornadoes spinning in a hurricane.
An endless storm ever brewing torment
to my chamber of thoughts.
Fire blazing
torching emotions to ashes.
Inferno raging
a wailing yearn to be freed
from this vile vicinity,
as my wretched soul
simmers a sob to bleak slumber
into the deep.

Life is a painting...

Some say life is a journey.I say life is a painting.How you live it is shown through the strokes you make.One silly stroke could ruin the picture or change how it is going to look in the end.The brush is the support from friends and family.If the bristles are not fine enough u will notice the strokes will not have fluidity.The colour of the painting is the attitude and personality.The brighter the colour the merrier,the dimer the boring.Every stroke whether made cautiously or not will determine the picture of the painting in the end.

                                                                                                                                      by Heather Dube

TWISTED

I don't blame you
you had to go.
You had to go
like those that came before you.
You couldn't stay any longer.
You don't trust what I could do
to you or to myself
because I am twisted.

I'm so twisted
I get myself tangled
and stranded in the rotting stench
of the skeletons in my closet.
Too many phantoms
spilling out the cracked door,
I can't shut them in.


Yesterdays...
when my passions became obsessions
obsessions turning into addictions.
when I had many mates,
when I could have many babies.
Babies I dissolved
in my forbidding womb of hatred.
Now their screams haunt me,
my dreams are tainted crimson
by the innocent infant breaths I extinguished.

 What I fear the most
is not the noises in my head,
but the silent whisper of my conscience.
Though my addictions never seem to stop.
I also fear
I shall be lonely forever

The one after you
will be gone like you
and those before you
because I'll tell the same twisted lies I told you.

CONFUSION

I'm having a derailed train of thoughts
on a track of confusion
submerging from a broken down bridge of illusions
headed to hallucinations
leaving me stationed at a nervous breakdown point
...simply,I'm confused

WAITING FOR THE RAIN

The fire ball
Blazing in the sky
Her rays piercing
Through my sun dyed skin
Calling the salty streams
To race down my body
Evaporating into dry air.

My feet fully clad
In bronze dust
Like madam's stockings.
My toes biting
Into the familiar path
That led to the water well.

A bucket strategically placed
On my head
I remember very well,
It's all vivid in my memory
Playing back
like the motion picture
At Master's house
On the canvas wall.

You were seated
On that rock.
Starring at me
Like a dish ready to be devoured.
My belly was in knots,
My eyes scattered all over,
I lost my footing,
The bucket fell
Spilling all its contents.

Now that I remember
You left me empty
Like that bucket.
All my love for you
Spilling out
To be swallowed by sand
And evaporate into dry air.
Do you remember?
The first time
You set your eyes on me,
I thought
They would never leave my face
But they left.

Ever since you evaporated
With my love
I've been waiting
For it to rain on me again.

PROMISE

Sketch a smile on my face let it not be fake
sketch a smile on my face make sure it never fades
place a star in my eye
let no tear cloud its shine
coz u promised u'll be mine.