When I say I'm a Christian... (Carol Wimmer)

When I say..."I am a Christian"
I'm not shouting "I'm clean livin'.
"I'm whispering "I was lost,
Now I'm found and forgiven.

"When I say... "I am a Christian"
I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumble
and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak
And need His strength to carry on.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed
And need God to clean my mess.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
But, God believes I am worth it.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.

When I say... "I am a Christian"
I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner
Who received God's good grace, somehow!

I dream about the day...

I dream about the day,
When I’ll no longer be.
I dream about the day,
When you’ll wake up to see.

See I was all you’d ever wanted,
The best you’d ever have.
See how showering all my love on you,
Meant I had none left for myself.

I dream of myself dying,
You hearing the terrible news.
I dream about you asking yourself,
Who’s left for me to use?

I see you walking aimlessly,
Wondering what a fool you’d been.
I see you crying for my return,
Praying to wipe the slate clean.

As I dream about that day,
When I’ll lay cold, six feet under,
I dream that for your sake & mine,
You’ll find another woman.

I dream about the day,
When your ego won’t dictate,
How you act, what you do.
But by then, it will be too late.

But then, I dream about you waking up,
And me being gone was just a dream.
When you wake I’ll be beside you,
And you’ll resist the urge to scream.

Scream with joy, with relief,
Knowing you’ve a second chance,
A second chance to love me right,
A second chance for a brand new start.

I dream of you making a vow that day,
To love and cherish me,
To never forget the special gift,
That is me and only me.

But this is just a dream for now,
For I know you all too well,
And although I hope and pray for it,
Honestly, only time will tell...

But for your sake and mine my love,
Don’t think I’m here to stay,
Because although I love you now...
Tomorrow is another day.

Dedicated to Mbali (by the Late Tshepo Gule)

There's something special...


There's something special
About the way you smile,
That lingers in my mind,
So that,
Whenever we're apart,
I always look forward,
To being with you again...

There's something special,
About the way you care for me,
And makes me feel strong enough,
To handle almost any day.

There's something special,
About the way you love me
That makes every day I'm with you,
One more reason,
To want to be with you forever...

How Aids Has Affected Me...

I can't believe I found this, after 7 years! This is an essay that I wrote for a Natal Witness essay competition in 2001. I won the competition and got it published in the paper...




"It was bright and sunny that day, the perfect day for a wedding. She was the first one of us to get married. We were proud. My brothers scraped every last cent from their wallets. My father wanted everything to be perfect. We were all together for the first time in years, we were a real family, united and happy. She radiated beauty and womanliness; my beloved sister had found true happiness.
I liked my brother-in-law, he looked like a good man and he treated her well. We all thought they would live happily ever after. After all, every cloud has a silver lining, right? My sisters life has had it's fair share of dark clouds, from the time when she was born and my father denied she was his, to when her mother had died in the floods of '95. She was a strong woman though, a real survivor. I loved her and I wanted this day to be extra special. It was. She rode out of the church with her new husband on her arm. We cheered, clapped and ululated. It was a happy ending, so we thought.
Two months later, on a cool windy Thursday, my mother received a call. My sister's husband was in hospital. Nothing major, just a recurring headache. I had no reason to worry I was reassured. But it was at that moment that I knew something was wrong. My family is always trying to protect me from things. They think just because I am the youngest I won't understand.
To a certain extent I don't understand, I don't want to understand. I should not have to understand. The worst thing was finding out. Like everyone who's never been faced with this situation, I made fun of it. I was just commenting on how everywhere you turn, there is a warning about HIV/AIDS. I might have said something like, "who cares how many people die of Aids everyday, they should know better." I cringe when I think of how insensitive and just blatantly cruel I was being. My mother asked me this: Would I still feel the same way if someone I was close to got infected? I said I would. Then she said "your sister's got it".
I was stunned. I thought about it, tried to make sense of her words, but I couldn't let myself believe it. I felt the ground beneath my feet crumble. I wanted, I needed to cry, but I couldn't. Instead I got angry. At her for letting this happen, at myself for loving her too much and even at God for taking my sister too soon. She would miss out on so much, and why, for what? For love? I didn't believe in love anymore. Everyone seems to believe that love is the answer - love conquers all. Well, let's see it conquer this. Nothing has managed to conquer Aids, not love, not medicine, not anything. It is love's fault that I'm losing my sister. She means the world to me. I love her so much it hurts. I wish I could take her place. She has so much more to live for; her presence is much more valued.
This is how I felt for a long time. But then one day, it hit me; she's not gone yet. I realized I would have to let God's will be done if I were to keep my sanity. I had to be there for my sister, after all she was suffering more than me. I had to stand by her to the bitter end.
Looking back on my sister's wedding day I can understand why she was glowing and radiant. Somehow she must have known that those smiles, cheers and ululation meant she was loved. A true uncircumstantial love that would give her the strength and reason to fight, even when things looked and seemed dark and hopeless. I realize that my sister's being infected with the HI virus has taught me. It has taught me to love, in word and in deed.
Me and my sister's relationship has survived the greatest test and I am proud to say that even in death, God is with us."

My Ideal Woman...

Beautiful eyes, focused
Crazy, yet disciplined
My soul sister,
African woman, independent woman

She's my ideal woman
when i met you,
my boys said i was getting soft,
i said - fuck
For my ideal woman,
i will cry,
i'll go to war and die,
for my ideal woman

I'll fight against evil
for my ideal woman
Because.....
Babe you worth it
When i did the right i
normally would done wrong,
I knew you were the one,
my ideal woman
when i could've treated you bad
but i didn't
knew you were the one,
my ideal woman

when you made me
appreciate you for you,
without even trying
i knew you were the ideal woman

when we sang along to Marley's
"is this love, is this love that i'm feeling"
i knew i had developed feelings f
or my ideal woman

But then you called and said
"babe we need to talk"
i thought, are we moving things up a notch?
the answer to that was nope!!!
we stop

now i'm ragging against self,
for my ideal woman
the one i know is the one,
is no longer there,
and i got no one
coz i don't want no one
other than you, my ideal woman

Could it be i fell for a wrong woman?
how could something
that feels this right be wrong?

where did we go wrong?
is it something i did,
something you did?
something i did i shouldn't have done?
what is it?

now i'm ragging against all
what's wrong with me,
what's wrong with you, woman?
there's nothing wrong with her,
after all....

she is my ideal woman
then she told me.....
what's really going on,
what really went down,
why we can't be down like that

she made me understand
that people go through phase in life,
right now i'm going through
a phase where i'm fighting to be
with my ideal woman"

even though right now we can't be
"we" like we where,
Babe, you are still my ideal woman

Fifteen and a Half (Eric Miyeni)

Never hurt somebody when you can be kind,
Never be kind to somebody when you should hurt
Be generous with the correct dose of the right
punishment or reward


Don't, don't don't only act to please, it does not suit you.
Never smile when looking at people and things you
despise
Never laugh when in your book the joke told is not
funny
Never jump up acting all excited when all you feel is
boredom

Never, never, never be false.
It's not necessary


When the man dying is the object of your hatred, don't
cry
Just like you mustn't laugh when you are dying to cry
Don't cry when your whole body is aching for you to
laugh

Don't, don't, don't be someone other than yourself, it isunbecoming


Never say sixteen when you should say fifteen and a half
Never lie when you should tell the truth
But never be truthful when you should wait for the right
moment for truth


Never, never lie or ill-time the truth, doing this
has a funny way of biting back
Never lick ass when you should be fighting hard
Never ever fight when you should be licking that ass


Be yourself always and pray
That 'yourself' is the best of you
that you can give to the world
Never change who you are to suit others.


But never, never, never stick to what's horrible about who you are.

The Black Woman is Dead (Source Unknown)

On August 15, 1999, at 11:55 p.m., while struggling with the reality of being a human instead of a myth, the strong black woman passed away.

Medical sources say she died of natural causes, but those who knew her know she died from being silent when she should have been screaming, milling when she should have been raging, from being sick and not wanting anyone to know because her pain might inconvenience them.

She died from an overdose of other people clinging to her when she didn't even have energy for herself. She died from loving men who didn't love themselves and could only offer her a crippled reflection. She died from raising children alone and for not being able to do a complete job.

She died from the lies her grandmother told her mother and her mother told her about life, men & racism. She died from being sexually abused as a child and having to take that truth everywhere she went every day of her life, exchanging the humiliation for guilt and back again.

She died from being battered by someone who claimed to love her and she allowed the battering to go on to show she loved him too. She died from asphyxiation, coughing up blood from secrets she kept trying to burn away instead of allowing herself the kind of nervous breakdown she was entitled to, but only white girls could afford.

She died from being responsible, because she was the last rung on the ladder and there was no one under her she could dump on. The strong black woman is dead.

She died from the multiple births of children she never really wanted but was forced to have by the strangling morality of those around her. She died from being a mother at 15 and a grandmother at 30 and an ancestor at 45.
She died from being dragged down and sat upon by UN-evolved women posing as sisters. She died from pretending the life she was living was a Kodak moment instead of a 20th century, post-slavery nightmare!

She died from tolerating Mr. Pitiful, just to have a man and the house. She died from lack of orgasms because she never learned what made her body happy and no one took the time to teach her and sometimes, when she found arms that were tender, she died because they belonged to the same gender.

She died from sacrificing herself for everybody and everything when what she really wanted to do was be a singer, a dancer, or some magnificent other.
She died from lies of omission because she didn't want to bring the black man down. She died from race memories of being snatched and raped and snatched and sold and snatched and bred and snatched and whipped and snatched and worked to death.

She died from tributes from her counterparts who should have been matching her efforts instead of showering her with dead words and empty songs. She died from myths that would not allow her to show weakness without being chastised by the lazy and hazy.

She died from hiding her real feelings until they became hard and bitter enough to invade her womb and breasts like angry tumors. She died from always lifting something from heavy boxes to refrigerators. The strong black woman is dead.

She died from the punishments received from being honest about life, racism & men. She died from being called a bitch for being verbal, a dyke for being assertive and a whore for picking her own lovers. She died from never being enough of what men wanted, or being too much for the men she wanted.
She died from being too black and died again for not being black enough. She died from castration every time somebody thought of her as only a woman, or treated her like less than a man.

She died from being misinformed about her mind, her body and the extent of her royal capabilities. She died from knees pressed too close together because respect was never part of the foreplay that was being shoved at her.

She died from loneliness in birthing rooms and aloneness in abortion centers. She died of shock in courtrooms where she sat, alone, watching her children being legally lynched.

She died in bathrooms with her veins busting open with self-hatred and neglect. She died in her mind, fighting life racism, & men, while her body was carted away and stashed in a human warehouse for the spiritually mutilated. And sometimes when she refused to die, when she just refused to give in she was killed by the lethal images of blonde hair, blue eyes and flat butts, rejected by the O.J.'s, the Quincy's, & the Poitiers.

Sometimes, she was stomped to death by racism and sexism, executed by hi-tech ignorance while she carried the family in her belly, the community on her head, and the race on her back!

The strong silent, talking black woman is dead!
Or is she still alive and kicking? I know I am still here.

The Invitation (Oriah)

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for and if you dare

to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool

for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow

if you have been opened by life’s betrayalsor

have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own

without moving to hide itor fade itor fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own

if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you

to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us

to be carefulto be realisticto remember the limitations

of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayaland not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty

even when it is not pretty every day.

And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure

yours and mineand still stand at the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon,

“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest meto know where you live

or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night

of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone

and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know

or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand in the centre

of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom

you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you from the inside

when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself

and if you truly like the company you keep

in the empty moments.

It takes a real man...

It takes a real man
To understand the heart
Of a real woman

It takes a real man
To fulfil the needs
Of a real woman

It takes a real man,
To delight the mind
Of a real woman.

It takes a real man
To pursue a real woman.

Because only a real man,
Knows that I am
As strong as I am weak
& altho most times
I don't need anyone

I get scared sometimes,
I need a compliment sometimes,
I need to be held sometimes
I need a friend sometimes.

A real man can
Let down his guard
For a real woman,
Risk his pride
For a real woman,
He can surrender his heart,
For a real woman,

Because unlike other men,
The real man sees
The true value...
Of a Real woman...