Lets not go home together?

Its like we dont expect to be courted anymore. I know, it all sounds very 20th century France but there's got to be more to it then just: guy meets girl, guy buys girl a drink at the bar, drunk guy and girl stumble home together. Surely?

I don't know, perhaps im a little too romantic for the "your nudes are safe with me" generation, but i require a little banter, a lot of good conversation and hopefully a little exclusivity- then who knows, i mean who is to get in the way of two consenting adults? lol. But even that, who taught men to court us like they are entitled to our bodies?

We blame men, we shouldnt.what we should do is demand more, "EARN ME" shouted Olivia Pope- im screaming in unison.

Seriously though, give me a little less casual. Stop tweeting me, stop calling me and just show up at my door and ask me how the fuck I am.

In the meantime, I'm going to sleep diagonally across my double bed and buy my own damn drainks.

22

Perhaps we like pink because we wear too much black

Perhaps we like diamonds because people aren't transparent

Perhaps we dont want to grow up because we've never been children

- Forever 21

Lamentations of a (semi)reformed bad girl

We start out at 18 and we think we know it all; how to give bat to cute guys, how to make our arms look thin in pictures and we think we know the important stuff too like how to walk away or how to pass our exams. I was like that too, i was pretty fucking sure that i knew everything about pretty much everything.

Life, as it does, went on to break down every single one of the things I thought I knew about people, about friendship, about love and even about myself. I’ve chronicled most of these things on this blog- These things I lost in the fire- but now at the end of my third year, waiting on my results, I find myself looking back at all of that and wondering about the person who came out on the other side.

I think a lot about the friends I loved and lost. I wonder if I made the right decisions and cringe at the times I know I didn’t and then I remember that I am young. I have the luxury of mistakes because I still have the luxury of time. I can afford to get my heart broken and to flirt with cute assholes but what I cannot afford is to fail at life.

So while I am young in so many ways, I am also old. Old enough to expect more, old enough to accept when I have failed, to learn the lessons and fight to make sure I never have to learn them again. Growing up is a pain in the ass.

But there is something beautiful about looking back at that sassy, opinionated, headstrong 18 year old that walked into university and the person who types this today. A little more confused, a little more wary but a little wiser too.

As for the lessons, as for the bad friends, as for *strohrum, *tequila, *jaggermeister and whoever the fuck else, in the words of a visionary “AINT NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!!!”

So fuck it, I’m happy. That’s enough.

I’ll see you guys on the other side.

Incisors and molars

Lately it feels as though i carry poetry between my teeth,
Like there are stanza's nestled between molars and pain,
Like the silver of my filling is filled with the scarlet of my naivety.

Lately it feels as though i carry poetry between my teeth.

I am not of those who are grammatically correct, how can I be when when the words seem to outrun the speed of my pen?
No, my pain does not rhyme; it does not fit neatly into stanza's and punctuation marks,
It does not wait for comma's and oxymoron's,
My pain is inelegant.. but it is mine.

It comes wrapped in an indian girls hair and squeezed into an asian sweat shop workers anguish,
It is borrowed, but it is mine.

They teach us to pretend, they do.
They teach us to smile, and bitch and laugh loudly.
When will they teach us the honour of tears?
When will they teach us the sanctity of honesty?
No. We are taught to smile.
So my pain runs to my room and hides.

Lately, without consent, it is as though my body offers sacrifices to my soul,
As though "they" have abandoned me and this faulty heart must choose.
As though I need not smile unless I am happy.
As though they will not judge.

Lately it feels as though my pain is running towards honesty.

So i know i am not poet; because these words seem to write themselves.

I write because I cannot scream.
I write because you cannot listen.

Buttercup naivety

There is something about not quite being in love,
Something about a rosying of the cheeks and giggling like your heart will never break again,
There is something about not yet having fought for your love;
An easiness, an innocence, a naivety about simply enjoying someone who is enjoying you.

Perhaps hard love is truer, deeper,
But there is something complex about that old, creased, made it through the fire kind of love,
Something perhaps reserved for those stupid enough or smart enough or strong enough,
But there is something painful about that hard fought, hard won, kind of love,
But then- the beauty of love is so often wrapped in the pain of love.

But me? I want me some buttercup naivety.
I want me some easy, throw my head back and laugh kind of love!!
So that when pain settles in the wrinkles on my heart and our love is soaked in hardship i will remember that i once laughed.

So i laugh, i smile and i giggle.
Be it for a day or a lifetime, i throw my head back and I laugh,
I laugh and the gods dance.
I laugh until tomorrow when laughter fades.

I never thought i would be the blogging type (whatever that even means) but im not really the diary type, or the random DMC type (except when im sipped and shaming my family) but it turns out that i am. It also turns out that its a little harder than i thought, because writing, truly writing, requires baring parts of yourself that make you vulnerable.

So the other day i wrote, truly wrote. From a place partly of experience, partly of hurt and partly of other people's pain. It turns out that those who cannot scream, write.

Lace Curtains

Listening to the sounds of memories lost in the diaspora of hating you,
Hating the thought of unravelled hopes and dishevelled futures as you forge your future with her,
Her cries and anguish only a confirmation that my laughter must too have been hollow,
Yet these hallowed halls of our love and lust and lie haunt my happiness.

Happily hampering the illusion of progress,
Progressively, agressively i concede that yes: i am only as much yours as you allow me, and you are as much mine as i deprive you.

Listening to the sounds of laughter smothered by a torrent of confusion,
Confused by the thought of the love laced with hate, or hate laced with love..
Or perhaps light little lulling's of a lust that is neither hate nor love.

Perhaps we are lace;
White but not pure- pierced intricately enough to be not quite blemish but not quite whole.
Too beautiful to wear, too beautiful not to.

Adorning my heart with the distant sounds of memories laced in love and lust and hate,
I must finally concede and rescind every forehead kiss, every stroke of the cheek, every moment of bliss,
Sublime in our complexity- Perhaps we are lace.

The things they don't tell u in matric

Ive done, REALLY DONE the whole varsity thing. I have had one too many- one too many times- i have pulled countless all nighters, spent long nights laughing with friends and been there when the club lights came on. I have found "love" (for lack of a suitable diminutive) here, lost love here and laughed and cried so hard i thought whichever excruciatingly beautiful top i was wearing would split in half -but more than anything i have grown.

So the other day, between chapters, i decided to write a little checklist of my stepping stones.

p.s. The beauty is in the subtext...

THINGS I LEARNT IN VARISTY

1. You will be tested, you will not have the material to study, so you will fail.
2. You will be tested, you will have the material but you will not stusy, so you will fail.
3. You will be tested again, but this time you will study, you will know the questions, you will have the answers. Then just as you think you will pass they will change the questions and you will fail.
4. Finally you will realise that the test was not about the questions or the answers, it was about how much you really knew, only then will you pass.

1. Friends will fail you when they meant to fail, when they didnt and when they didnt realise they had.
2. When you can't tell your enemies from your friends stop trying to see them, they will show you.
3. When you finally know the difference, ask God to let them go: you will not be strong enough.

1. People will speak badly of you. They will lie about you, they will tell the truth about you and it will hurt.
2.These people are usually badly dressed, overweight or unnattractive, it will piss you off.
3.The best you can do is be honest with yourself and those that matter.

1. When you feel lost, truly lost, that is when God will find you and redeem you.
2. Your past, your mistakes, they can either strengthen your character or swallow it whole.

Above all, when you have passed the test, when you have learnt the lessons; don't go back and re-take the test, you will fail.

17 August 2012- A little grown, a little wiser but not all the way there.

Charcoal is closer to black

 I feel lied to. I feel lied to by cliches and movies and Adele and especially by this sense of complacency that seems to have taken root in everything. By that i mean the notion that the context of a situation should make the bottomline better.

Let me elaborate; You're a side-chick but you love him, so that makes it more ok than someone who is just doing it for the.. lets call it 'colouring'.

Personally i hate shades of grey, what i hate even more is that somewhere between my high school blazer and studying for my third year exams, i became ok with them. I hate shades of grey because they make you weak, they make excuses and compromises and the next thing you know, you dont even know where you started.

Its all shits and giggles when you get a free drink from the bartender, or get a compliment on your new weave but in the greater scheme of things what does it really matter if your weave isnt synthetic when you're a shit person.

A friends BBM status read "Don't let your reputation come at the cost of your character". I'll let you marinade in  that one for a bit and add, the "friend" has incredibly broad shoulders- naturally, we believe him.

But really though, it doesnt matter what it looks like to the outside world, who you look like. At the end of the day when you have your doek on and your make-up off, just for a moment, you know whether its black or white and if you're screwing up.

So i'm trying something new. I am calling myself to a higher standard and hopefully somewhere between all of the trying to be better, i will simply be better.

One of the boys

Women dont have brotherhood. we dont have loyalty, and even when we do, one flirtatious sms too many and we are willing to swop that for.. well whatever it is that people gain from these things.

So i suppose it should make sense to me when some girls say that they are primarily friends with men because they "dont need the drama", but i dont. I feel that- like the token black guy, in a crew of white boys- you're trying too hard to be something you're not.

In fact, let me take it further than that, i think you're trying too hard to act like you dont care that your peers (in this case girls) either dont like you, or dont notice you or whetever damage it is thats making you hide between kegs  and  being "one of the boys".

I think every girl needs a group of girlfriends. To laugh with, drink wine with and swop girly stories with. if you're lucky, like i have been, you will even find the kind you can really share yourself with, who will be both well dressed and tell you when you're not. Friends who are there for everything, good, bad and obscene.

If you would rather swop that for belching hansa pilsner then no, i dont trust you.

Process

They say that conviction is not tested in the promised land but in the furnace, the equivalent of this being that you won't be tested when you're feeling strong and happy and you're wearing your favourite pair of heels; you will be tested when you're feeling weak, when you're listening to a song that reminds you of him, or you're drunk and your phone just happens to be in your hand. It is then, at the moment when you should know better, when you do, that u might lose.

Yes, you'll regret it in the morning and you will know for certain that you are a loser. I'm sorry, but yes, you are a loser. And that's ok. But my own second degree burns don't just scream "another idiotic girl" they also say that i'm trying.

It's ok to be in the process, it's ok not to know better yet, but its also not ok to wallow in a place that can only bring you hurt and pain and fuck with your dignity.

That's the thing little grasshoper; wax on, wax off- process.