Devil May Care

Warning: BLASPHEMOUS POST. If you have issues with your religious convictions please don’t read, if you have no issues read at your own peril. If you wish to have issues, by all means read!

Have you ever walked into those SME-like private hospitals where at 7.30am the nurses and cleaners, cooks and doctors gather to sing praises and pray profusely for the good lord to enrich, multiply and “bless” the works of their hands? I would have told you more if I could understand the various gibberish like tongues in which they are wont to speak. Sorry, can’t help you there. In fact, you may be able to help me if you have the gift of interpretation. I actually seriously think that some Christians get competitive during group prayers. You see, there’s a language of new generation prayer (and I don’t mean speaking in tongues here), there is a register which only the initiated can pull off without biting off the tips of their tongues. Those who are fledglings in this art resort to spouting gibberish tongues which, by the way, is also an art, but then, I digress. Maybe some other post…

So I was wondering about those prayer sessions, what exactly does this kind of prayer mean, Ehn?!, seeing that the works of their hands are dispensing medication to people who are ill. Another almost clichéd situation would be the coffin maker who prays for business every morning. How about at work? The dog eat dog situation we all face, now check this: imagine there’s this guy who’s been “Deputy Whatever” for years, sometimes “Acting Whatever” when the Big Kahuna travels or is on vacation but is unceremoniously stripped of all power when Kahuna comes back. Now, it is clear Kahuna is going nowhere in the nearest future, see, Kahuna is still young, nowhere near retirement , so elimination by retirement is out of the question. Kahuna is not likely to get a new job anytime soon what with the recession and everything. Is it mere coincidence then that “Mr. Deputy” prays much more vigorously in church on Sunday for divine elevation just when there is “gist” from a “reliable source” in HR that there may be job losses in their company. Pourqoir? Pray tell.

All these make me wonder, how does the good lord keep it all straight and fair? Selfish prayers are difficult to answer I suppose. Does he go on a ‘drop ‘em’ spree as soon as his beloved son, the coffin maker, cries to the heavens about being broke! Or does he feed the coffin maker the bad nuts, those who’ve never bothered to cry to the high heavens over… well… over anything? Or an even better scenario, what if he just allows the evil one get ‘em while he does his bit by directing the steps of the dead man’s relatives to this particular coffin maker?

I really don’t know how it’s supposed to work when people say selfish prayers with no thoughts as to who might have to be stripped in order to enrich them…

Disclaimer:

This post is the direct consequence of lack of sleep for three nights straight. If you have any unfavourable comments kindly address it to “PT’s insomnia” thanks.

Tug Of War

There’s a tug of war in here
Oh there’s a tug of war

You make me cry
You make me laugh
You drink my love
And spit at me
You slap my face
And stroke my hair
You light my flames
And chill my bones
I say goodbye
And cling to you
I rue the day
I kissed your lips
I speak your name
And feel the shame

And fight this war
Inside of me

Checkmate!

Mate

Wait

The game is up

So you can stop

Did you think that I was blind?

Did you think I wouldn’t mind?

Mate

Hate

Is what I feel

So here’s the deal

'Won’t play with you for one more day

My mind is made up, come what may!

I saw a dead body today...

There she was, lying on the tarred road, in an undignified pose of which no right thinking photographer would have approved, well except for those modern and artsy photographers deeply into the garish and macabre. Her legs were grotesquely bent askew, her neck twisted at an impossible angle. She wore a brown skirt which had ridden up her well-shaped thighs and a matching top which I couldn’t see clearly. When I looked closer, I saw she was light-skinned and wore one of the more expensive weaves available in the market. She had make-up on. She was once a good looking woman clearly full of life. But now, she was merely another carcass on Ikorodu road ironically lying under the pedestrian bridge. Judgment has never been swifter.

(Yes I did see a dead body today which affected me greatly :(, a wasted life just because she didn't use the pedestrain bridge that was, oh, so close to her. and Yes it WAS hit and run you had to see the damage to the body to imagine the impact that must have done that)

Me and my mother

For years, she strived to make me into a lady. Ladyship of course being by her own definition. Again, of course, she failed miserably.

I never did understand why she was always on my case. Don't slouch or walk with a swagger, chew with your mouth closed, help me out in the kitchen (but mom, everyone else is going with Dad to the club). She didn't even bother with an answer. One evil look and I was in the kitchen meekly cutting 'ugu'. I swore I'd been adopted. That's why she loved me less than my brothers who were practically allowed to do as they pleased. To her credit, she never did quite cage me like one would expect being a bit unorthodox herself. But every now and then she decided that maybe she should bring me up like her mother did her. So, I would pound the cocoyam for the 'oha' soup as opposed to using the blender. I would pound the pepper and chop the onions. I would lay my bed and follow her to Tejuosho market to buy basket of tomato and heap of yam! I hated every moment of it. I hated the haggling and the shoving and cussing that went on there. I still do by the way.

My brothers did house work too. Maybe it had something to do with my incessant "why can't I go out and play football?" kind of questions. I got to wash the cars once a week too. I actually enjoyed doing that. My parents, my Dad especially, thought the boys needed to be balanced to survive bachelorhood when the time came. He'd been a 'bachelor'' himself for a while and had to 'fend' for himself. He didn't want his sons to grow up not having a clue how to scrub floors or make a pot of stew. So there was a cooking roster and a duty roster. My brothers learnt to cook everything from fried yam to egusi soup. But then, whenever we had to go outside of the roster, guess who got picked first?

Then I turned twelve. And Mom thought we should have 'the talk'. So she gave me a book. I can't remember the exact title now but it was filled with uninteresting stuff about monthly cycles, counting the days, ovulation periods and safe periods, Billings method and so on and so forth. Nothing of the raunchy stuff I expected. Rewind a bit to when I was eight. My Dad bought a series of science books. The series started with book one, which was about unicellular organisms and progressively ended at book 16 which was about Man. It had all the gist about each specie, everything really from feeding habits to reproduction. Daddy gave me a book a week and suddenly stopped at book fifteen which, yes you are right, was about mammals (gorrillas and whales). Then no book sixteen. My brother and I were baffled. Because each book had the whole series listed at the back. We KNEW there was a book sixteen. Hmmm... something fishy was going on. So off we went in search of book sixteen and there it was tucked away in between some encyclopaedia in Dad's study. To cut a long story short, at eight I had seen live pictures, with real life models having sex. I saw a penis with semen at the tip of it. I knew that was the stuff that made women preggers. I knew exactly where you were supposed to put it and how the vaginal walls contracts and excretes lubrication to make sexual intercourse enjoyable and to carry the man's semen to the place where fertilization happened! So suffice it to say that Billing's method wasn't what I wanted to read at 12. I had also read enough Nick Carters and James Hadley Chases to know that sex was raunchy and sweaty and glorious and not the clinical thing my mother's book described. I gave her back the book with a straight face and swore I'd finished it. So we proceeded to have the talk... "You are growing into a woman now and will soon begin to notice some changes in your body" she began and I immediately felt embarrased for her. I just had the sense that she was as uncomfortable as I was, seriously, why couldn't she just spare both of us the torture? So she went on in that fashion until thankfully it was over, quickly. And we pretended it never happened. When I got my period she gave me a pack of tampons and the literature that came with the pack and sent me to the bathroom. Her good deed for the year done.

You see, my mother and I, we didn't know what to say to each other for a long time. It seemed that each time we opened our mouths we hurt each other. I was not the daughter of her dreams but I was the only one she had so it was a struggle adjusting to this little dissappointment that was me. I made her cut off my long hair when I was 10 so she kept the long strands for me to see what I made her do when I was old enough to appreciate it. Instead, when I was actually old enough I went bald by choice. Mummy never understood it. My mother would never wear a pair of jeans without accessorising it to the max. Jeans are for hippies in my Mother's books. My Mom is a pair of expensive blazers, lovely frilly dress, long curly hair, heely strappy sandals, manicured nails kind of chic. I am a jeans and sketchers wearing, dreadlocked, costume jewelry kind of chic.

When Mommy went to live in the US of A, it couldn't have been a better time because we were nearly at the point of tearing each other's throats apart. In her frustration at the ungainly woman I was growing up to be she made mistakes. In my none appreciation of the sensitivity of the situation I made mistakes. We fought, we ranted and we cried. We spilled sweat and even blood sometimes in our legendary battles. My father wisely stayed away from it all. I remember the day we saw her off to the airport, my brother's and I, 14 years ago. She had tears in her eyes and she said to me, "you won't cry now, you want me to go, don't you?" Well, hell Yeah!

Well, we've come a long way, me and my mother. Now we talk and we laugh. Now we can stay in the same home for weeks and not scratch each others gullets out. Now we talk on the phone for hours on end. Now we are both grown women who have our own experiences to enrich our lives. Now i appreciate the sacrifices she made for her children who she loves dearly. Now I know she loves me and wants the best for me. A bit misguided sometimes but extremely well intentioned and filled with love. I appreciate the wisdom the years have given her. I admire her strength and tenacity. I respect what she has made of her life. I love her. My beautiful mother.

Untitled

look in my eyes
what do you see?
corneas and irises
or the intricate tales
of a journeyed soul?
hold my hand
what do you feel?
the calluses and corns
are stories untold

but can you feel the heartbeats

of everyone I’d held and lost?
watch me walk away
do you see swinging hips
or the cautious steps
of feet that know the rocky lane?
come, here, look again
tell me what do you think

Picture from www.photobucket.com

OH NO!

Some of you may have noticed my protracted silence. Some of you may not have noticed. If you hadn't noticed - :P on you! But that's not the point to this post.

I couldn't type so I couldn't post an update. Honestly. I've had this mysterious pain in my right shoulder for ages now. It creeps up on me and stays for a few days and then dissappears. I thought it was because I'd dislocated my shoulder sometime in the past. Newayz, I finally got a diagnosis - ARTHRITIS!

How the heck do you have arthritis at 28?! Yeah, I know all about juvenile arthritis. This is clearly not juvenile so what is it? If you are in doubt kindly check out my ass and tits.

Okay like this is not bad enough, it decides to attack my right shoulder! What's wrong with my left shoulder? Isn't it as ripe and ready as the right. I guess not. Perhaps if I were left handed then it would have gone there. So I've no clue what this means for my future or whatever. All I know is I am in pain and it seems I will be for the rest of my life!

So frustrated. Okay I'll google the condition now and stop freaking out.

Sorry guyz. I just hate this.