My Hair

source: brotherpeackmaker.wordpress.com

I have never been a hair girl. I don't have any idea how to take care of it and I think the only time I had nice hair was in year 13. Relaxed hair, natural, weave, pick n drop you name it. It always goes wrong...

After watching the documentary black hair by Chris Rock, I decided never to use relaxer in my hair. There's a part in the documentary where correct me if I am wrong a coke can is put in some relaxer or is it sodium hydroxide and the can is completely eaten up by the stuff .

I couldn't get the video I wanted so here is the link 

I've been thinking about going natural for a year now. I am in a transition state. I stopped relaxing my hair last year in June. And I will be chopping my hair of come spring... My decision was ruled by the fact that my hair was falling out anyway. Relaxers where just not working out.

Come March I will be cutting my hair and my quest for natural beauty will begin. I have been researching on this believe me. I have watched countless you tube videos. Read countless blog posts. I will be trying out different things on my hair. I know a little bit about where i was going wrong with my hair care regime * I didn't have one to be quite honest*

Hopefully I will be documenting my hair journey. I hope i can learn a lot for this experience. Might even get locks in a few years who knows?

Wish me luck ....

The Good old days

Take me back to those good old days

when you were you and i was me

when you were yourself and had an identity

When we we individuals

young , free , unjaded by the world

When you were happy to be yourself and share with the world

before envy, jealousy and hate prevaded your soul.

Right to that very second before you changed from my friend to my enemy

I miss you old friend and wherever you are I hope you come back

Get back to being that carefree, happy young person I knew.

I love you and hope to God you come back soon

So we can be that family or at least that close friend you once were

The one that got away

You overwhelmed me with who you are;
the first time I saw you it was a lovely African winter afternoon.
My first impression of you was ' damn tiwi his defo not for you' .
I judged you. Mocked you .All in my mind of course. Presumed that you were the typical form of  man I was used to. You sat there in your shiny new automobile, literally bursting with your energy. I thought you would just brush me off just as the others always do.
You challenged me, you intrigued me, with your soft brown eyes
your deep set soft voice and your kindness. If  I believed in love at first sight,I believe I could have fallen for you.
You made me blossom even if it was only that one time. You saw that I was shy but you coaxed words out of my mouth and didn't dismiss me as the fat quiet girl. Wait a minute .. you flirted with me and actually made me feel special. Just the memory of how you made me feel in that one instance makes me feel those butterflies I felt that day.
Sadly our moment will always remain that one moment, we are separated by time and space. You belong to another and I belong to another to.The moment you created gave me hope to believe in men-kind and led me to my 'one'. 
I am so happy for you but sometimes I can't help but think you are the one that got away. I will never know you as a woman and you will never know me as a man.

I am a Black Woman

Black something that is always portrayed as dark.
Remember our colonisers called Africa the 'dark continent'.
environmental determinism , labeled me as something beneath everyone else.
So that you could dehumanize me and enslave me
 Negro
kaffir
spade
darkie
 sub human.

Women :

 subservient ,
weak man,
Second,
 extension of a child,
 slave.
object
possession
property

Verse 1

I heard him say. You are unfortunate my dear, to a) be born a women and b) to be born black

Need I remind you Mr that I am blessed

with confidence

with my intelligence

with the curves that you can't handle

with pride and strength that you cannot even begin to comprehend

with determination and ambition 

I work hard to prove to the world that I am just as good.

I am the underdog you overlook

Please remember this face when I become your biggest adversary .

I am a black woman. Am I cursed?

 'Hell to the No'

What I am is blessed. 

God made me me because he knew that I Tiwonge Gondwe can carry the weight of my color and gender

He saw my future and smiled .

 You keep reminding me that I am black

when you follow me in the supermarket

when you ask me if I need help ,just as I enter the store.

When you give me that dirty look and yell 'go back to your country'

Even if you keep it in your mind most of the time. Your eyes say it all.

Didn't you know that your eyes are the windows to your soul?

What does that say about you?

Verse 2

'A woman's place is the kitchen' Have you experienced that?

Have you heard this before?

I have.

This is my empowerment. By trying to put me down you empower me

By telling me that I was born to be an extension of you 

you give me that push...

You build my strength 

You can try to

suppress me

 hold me down

didn't you know that I am a fighter

For I have the strength of my mother and my aunties

And most importantly God

You can never break me!

 You will never win!

I am after all a Black woman,  

hardship is a cross I have been borne with from my conception

I will walk upright

  proud of who I am.

Confident, 

Graceful 

and educated   

You will say I have 'attitude'

I will answer you and tell you that 'I just don't take your b.s'

I've come too far in my short life to let them take my things.

 I am Black Woman. You best remember that!

The Mask slips...

In moments of weakeness, past hurts haunt me, they consume me they control me 
they become my present and blacken my future. 
forgotten guilt utterly shames me and reminds me of what makes me imperfect. 
Feelings i do not want to feel evade my mind and become me.. My mask is shaken from whenced i placed it. 
That which i convey to the world is taken away 
And i am left naked and vulnerable. 
I am just me.. the me that i never let any of you see. 
Can u feel my anguish oozing from this?.. i can't .. as i surround myself with numbness and blank my mind from the reality of my imperfections. 
I will forever be ruled by these extremities and shall never find my balance 
forever swinging in this limbo that is my burden and what you call life.

Untitled feeling

What is this bublbly sensation i feel creeping up on me... this lightness like i am on top of the world

this weightlessness that allows me to feel i can achieve anything with you by side?

The other half of me filled up? When did that happen self?

the other half of me fulfilled? I wasn't watching carefully, wondering, waiting... maybe for you to appear and complete me

You hold that key now.. the key to my bubbles, the key to my happiness
Just rember don't loose it.. I may never be the same again without my bubbles...
I never thought Id give my bubbles to another human being.. but u stole them

you tenderly took them in your arms and captured them with your minds eye...

I beg you that even when  that day comes for you to return my key...
try to give it back untarnished... 

Waiting.....

Listening to the sultry sounds of Sade, feeling my head with instantenous bliss, its almost too much

But her melodiously voice mirrors my internal disturbance .

The turbulent thoughts that consume my mind reinforced by the music that evades my small space.

so many things and all at once.

the instant burst of zesty lemon in my mouth combined with my confused train of thought,

my exhausted mind, my abused feelings strech my mental capability to it's limit.

and yet i wait..what am i waiting for. Something to happen... nothing happens. i am left alone , vulnerable and naked in my feelings, torn to shreds by this constant stretching of my emotions... like that good old song says ' I'm cold and i am weak laying naked on the floor' . That is exactly how i feel.

the two mes

a symphony of screams pervade her mind

locked in the terror of darkness she reaches out for my hand,

i am solid she is only but a distant memory of who i once was,

we reach out for each other as though grasping for lost straws,

we are one and the same me and her 

and her painful screams are mine and hers

where are you little lost me?

Somewhere in the back of my hidden conscious , just waiting to jump out and catch me unawares,

why do you scream old me?

me and me know but you will never know,

never will you feel that raw emotion that brings me to my knees 

that tears me apart inside

you look at me and you see my cold  brown hard eyes.  Tortured by something you can never understand

they can tell you something or nothing about the trails of a lost girl...