Journey

my journey…

what is my journey?

the distinct words stick in my jaw like barbed wire snare

kicking back in this crowed space they call my mind, I ball up

into a shell of ideas

driven by fear, i curl up in my discomforts

disguising these thoughts of adjustments

…adjustments for this thought

I am perfectly voiceless

without rhythms, no tune

& if I am hesitant to share

it is because I write my discomforts

seemingly unaware that this may be the very thing, caging me

my journey,

do you mean where I come from?

an east African, no, a Burundian – living in the diaspora

Titter towering between these two worlds

Cultures mixed with culture, disrupted accents, Eurocentric mindset

so, lost in who I’m supposed to be, there is no home

the longing to belong leaves me with the same familiar sense of a thin papery feeling

like a sprat in a pickle jug, there are many of us, wondering, searching, & constantly asking,

what is my journey?

Though as I sit here, almost at the end of it, I reach a crossroad

before me, two railway lines meet & I suddenly feel a sense of calm

reminiscing once more of my journey, asking, what is my journey?

my journey

a journey of life, of raptured love and of intensity

a collection of poems about heartache, of happiness, of loneliness, of death.

on this course of realisation, I am no longer afraid to die

this truth sticks in my jaw like barbed wire snare

most nights I can’t breathe where I am

trying to stay afloat in the ocean that I once found refugee,

Perfectly still

perfectly voiceless. still

I write my discomforts

Still I write my discomforts – what do they mean? what do they want with it?

my journey

a story of trauma, of birth and rebirth

of life and of hope and shattered dreams

so dark no sky could squeak through

I am a proverb of what it means to experience tribulation

to be touched in all the wrong places

that even in a bed full of safety, I am afraid

afraid of being known,  I don’t dress these thoughts for those who ask

I’m half notes scattered, sometimes a handful of notes

silent keys without rhythms, no tune

my journey? a proverb of what it means to experience tribulation, it lifts me

For it’s against struggle

That the best and most moving of stories have always unfolded

I write this to elaborate on what it means to love the imperfect self

and to be loved in return in spite of oneself

how it feels to be a vessel outside the spirit

my journey?

continuous, infinite beauty

It is no more you than me in this moment

no greater than, no less than

because there is no one who has been or will ever be exactly the same as either you or me