Man who first broke my Heart

My father was an ethical man, or so society believed him to be.

My father was a principled man, or so society believed him to be.

My father was a faithful man, or so society believed him to be.

My father was an honest man, or so society believed him to be.

My father was a courageous man, or so society believed him to be.

I beg to object!

Objection!

Never had I seen a person wear lies in a way that seemed so beautiful and truthful.

My father was vices embodied.

My father was everything demonic that needed to be exorcised from the visage of the earth.

Where were his principles when he bashed my mother’s nose in?

Where were his principles when I hid from him as he ran through the house looking for his punching bag of a child?

Where were his principles when he was responsible for the bruises on our bodies?

Where were his principles when he broke my arm and threatened to kill my mother if I told the truth to anyone outside our so called family?

Where were his ethics when he gambled my future away?

Where were his ethics when he committed adultery more than ones?

Was he being faithful when my mother found condoms in his trousers and she wouldn’t stop crying after the hell of a marriage she’d persevered?

Was he being faithful when he started dating a woman who was my now current age?

Where was his courage when he beat my mother for questioning him?

Where was his courage when he left in the middle of the night because he couldn’t bear to look into my mother’s eyes and see the years of destruction he’d put her through, and yet now he wanted to leave her for a new ‘love of his life’?

There was only cowardice and shame.

He couldn’t dare to see the betrayal in her eyes.

In my eyes!

I still remember the look on my mother’s face when she realized he’d left for good.

Her heart broke so loudly that mine shattered at the sound of it.

Her soul’s light went out completely and she finally gave up!

She went to the bathroom for what seemed like an eternity that morning after he left.

The water didn’t stop running and she didn’t answer when I knocked.

So I walked in to a scene that forever changed my life and my opinion about my father.

The water was red and it was everywhere on the floor.

She wasn’t moving and she lay with her head facing the door and her eyes fixated at me as I remained frozen by the bathroom door.

The look on her pale face could evidently show that she was hoping my father would have walked in just in time to save her but like the disappointment he’d always been, she died with nothing but a hopeful look on her face.

My heart broke twice in a single day and in a way that I can never forgive my father.

Vanessa_Beyonce

If only I’d known what I know now.

To the men that I have loved, without a single regard to whether they loved me back or not. To the men that I have loved, in the language of compromise and self-disrespect, I should have loved myself instead. I should have thought myself worthy and deserving of kindness and respect but how could I when all I’d ever known was betrayal and selfishness from all those who’d ever claimed to have loved me? It had been engraved in my soul that pain was the ideal love language and so when my heart bled and my mind cried for help, I taught them to compromise and to find peace in the pain of silence. By doing that, I dove into the deep depths of self disrespect that one can only cause by not loving themselves. I thought I loved myself but every time my reflection stares back at me, it is the imperfections that my eyes choose to see. I wasn’t light enough in complexion, never thick or skinny enough, never tall or short enough, never sexy enough, never quiet enough, never talkative enough etcetera. It broke my heart that I could love the imperfections in all of you yet somehow, you kept leaving me because something about me always stood out more in a negative way. Despite all that, I wish I’d chosen to love myself in the manner I chose to love you, imperfections and all. If only I’d known what I know now.

To all the friends that I have loved before I really understood what it meant to love and to be loved. This led me to love even those who did not care a bit for me. I shared all that I was going through yet when I walked out of the door, I heard your judgement upon my choices. “She chose to love the man that put his hand on her in a manner that bruised her skin. She chose to love the man that seemed to have chronic cheatisis because he couldn’t seem to understand the basics of faithfulness. She chose to love the man that hid her from the world and only loved her loudly at the comfort of any four-walled hotel room. She chose to love a man that wanted to hold her hand only after he’d made her cry like a small girl. She chose to sacrifice herself because she was more acceptable that way.” Yet if I’d understood that what I was holding on to in the name of relationships was abuse, I’d probably have walked away and chosen better men for myself. If only I’d known what I know now.

To the relatives that I have tolerated before I knew what I know now. I can assure you that I’d never have let you a step near me, nor would I have looked your way for as long as I did. I would have spoken up when I chose to bite my tongue because I thought that is what it meant to be good and obedient. I would have chosen to love myself instead of placing my worth in the hands of people who saw me as nothing more than garbage. I would have probably spared myself the heartache that my younger self had to endure in the hands of sadists and narcissists. My present self knows better by now and that is all that matters.

She has healed and she has learnt. The consistency in her courage to redefine herself is that of a person determined to never hit rock bottom again. The years of letting herself down are finally behind her and as she crosses into the new year, it’s in the same manner a warrior matches into the battlefield, unsure of their fate yet sure of nothing more than the need to survive. In a world that has been and will always be subject to evolution, perhaps we could accept to be part of that change that is inevitable.

We could choose to break from patterns that have held us hostage because we are stronger than those patterns. We are stronger than the people that hold us down emotionally. We are more than what has been whispered in our years at one or several points in our lives. We are everything we wish we could be if only we choose to dare to rise above our past and better the present for a better future. This I say in confidence because I now know what I wish I knew then.

Article by;

Vanessa Beyonce

My Reminisce.

Allow me to dream for an extra minute. Allow me to process all this for an extra minute. Allow me to rest for an extra minute. Allow me to forget the present, erase thoughts of the future and only exist in the past for an extra minute. Allow me to be calm for an extra minute.

I have my eyes open and just seeing you scares me. The ‘mzungu’ who keeps taking the likes of me away from our families and taking us to new lands to enslave us. It’s been three seasons and thousands of miles from my motherland. I was taken from my family and ancestoral land and I can’t help but wonder what will happen to my soul once I die and get buried in this foreign land whose ancestors do not know me. Will I be all alone in a darkness so profound that my soul will know loneliness for an eternity? In this three seasons, you have tried to teach me your faith which is comforting to my thoughts right now because at least in your version there’s a place my soul can go and join good people where we will live eternity in nothing but bliss.

I can’t help but wonder though, in this beautiful place, will I still be working in the cotton fields during the day and in a white man’s house at night? In this place, will the white man still have a better house than me? Will he still live in a more comfortable eternity than me? Will the likes of me still be expected to live in separate spaces from the white man? Will my ancestors be in this place? I’m conflicted and I cannot ask questions because I am supposed to look beautiful and be as stupid as possible. My people respected me as their princess and as their leader because of my wisdom. I was fair in my decisions and I was kind to everyone. Including you when you first set foot in my land. I should have turned you away but how could I? I had heard stories though of what happened to villages that had turned the ‘mzungu’ away so I thought it would be safer for my people if I welcomed you to live among us for a few moons. I thought you would embrace my culture and my people but how wrong I was.

Eventually I became comfortable around you and that’s how I ended up in that slave ship. I had to watch some of my people, who you managed to catch the night you kidnapped me, die of diseases and poor living conditions. You didn’t even give us a fighting chance because like the cowards you are, you attacked in the middle of a stormy night so that my army wouldn’t be alerted. You had the element of surprise on your end and so you slaughtered my worriors in their sleep. The few of my people that survived, I haven’t seen since I set foot off that ship and got sold to you because you thought a princess would be an amazing trophy from your expedition to Africa, to show off to other white masters like yourself. It kills me to see how my people are talked to, treated, thrown around and even used. I should have done right by my people.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, you took away my name and gave me one with no meaning and no honour. My name had meaning, honour and love behind it. My name linked me to my ancestoral land and those who’d died there but you took that from me. It took a whole two seasons for me to accept this fact. A whole two seasons of getting whipped every time I’d refuse to answer to the name “Mary” or every time I’d introduce myself as “Wanjirú wa Njeri”. “Unacceptable!” You’d say every time before ensuring I kissed the very floor I was standing on thank s to the slap you’d deliver to my cheek. Before I came here, I lived in a land where men respected women and protected them but here, your kind of men protect only the women with skin tones like yours. So I couldn’t help but pitty the girls being born in this land and have to learn that they’ve been born into a curse of rape, slavery and illiteracy. It doesn’t help to see how you’ve managed to break our black men. It pleases you to watch them beg and submit but where I came from, our men were worriors. They answered to no one and they loved being alive. Now all we do is long and call out for death, envying those whom we’ve laid to rest.

So I close my eyes and hope that you allow me to dream for an extra minute. Allow me to process all this for an extra minute. Allow me to rest for an extra minute. Allow me to forget the present, erase thoughts of the future and only exist in the past for an extra minute. Allow me to be calm for an extra minute.

Article by;

Vanessa Beyonce.

My Little Red Riding hood

My little red riding hood. Always entering the wolf’s den head-on without twitching in the face of danger. I’m looking at you as you speak boldly, cautiously ensuring that your lips let nothing but the right words out. I’m amazed at how your eloquence commands the keen ears of your listeners to stay and pay attention as if what you are saying is somewhat examinable. I am more than embarrassed to be the reason you are in this position. I cannot help but blame myself because I should have been a worrior for you, ensuring that I took you as far away as I could from the wolf but instead I chose to cower in the hope of a happy ever after.

Oh what big teeth he had. Yet instead of running, I made us stay. Luckily, we escaped before he fully devoured us but I couldn’t protect us from the big chunk of our souls he dared to take. Over the years he had lived off the small bites he took from our souls. I should have protected you and chosen to wipe that terrified look off your face but instead, I chose to put a smile on mine. A mother is supposed to protect her child but I failed at the basic innate nature of motherhood. I failed you my little red riding hood.

Oh what big paws he had! Big enough that he couldn’t keep them to himself and we paid the price. I tried to get between them and you but he always got to you. You however, my little red riding hood, always wore a smile regardless because you knew a frawn was a devastation that would weigh heavily on my heart. I should have been the heroine then maybe you wouldn’t have had to be standing on that stand testifying on my behalf.

Oh what big ears he had! Big enough that filing a police report for domestic violence was never an option. Our plans to escape always failed because somehow his ears always caught wind of our plans. He always found you regardless of how far I’d send you and he’d always bring you back to that place he called home. An action that never failed to break my heart and it thrilled his black charcoal heart. Forgive me my little red riding hood, I shouldn’t have let him put you through all that.

Oh what a big appetite he had! Big enough that no matter how much of my happiness he consumed, it was never enough. So he decided to go for the final dish. Something wasn’t right and this time, it seemed like he was going to kill us and this was an epiphany I got as I made my way to the floor after he bashed my head against the wall. As I was coming to, I heard you screaming but for a minute I couldn’t move and I couldn’t scream. I could see that you were in trouble and he didn’t seem like he was going to be linient. He had his arm around you little neck ready to choke the very breath we’d seen you struggle to take when you were born. So I grabbed a knife and slit his throat from behind forcing his demonic blood to splash on that angelic, innocent face. In death, he took some of my humanity and some of your innocence with him. Still, I should have taken you away from all that before it got to that point.

Now here I am standing trial for the murder of a man no one is convinced could hurt a fly. Your testimony is all I need to be rendered ‘not guilty’ because the bruises on your neck are still fresh. I cannot help but think that maybe I deserve to go to prison for not being able to keep you safe then maybe you’d get adopted into a good family. However, if I do get another chance at motherhood, I promise to give you a forest void of any wolf. I’ll only ensure fairies and ponies of your liking enter the kingdom I plan to give you. All this is dependent on the jury and I pray they find me to be ‘not guilty’. If they don’t then the wolf will have won from the grave. 

Article by;

Vanessa Beyonce.

Old Age

As I sat on the porch watching the sun set, I couldn’t help but reminisce. I had earned the right to sit and dream whatever time of day it be, so I chose the most beautiful time of the day. The view was amazing and as I watched the sun set, so I sipped some tea and allowed my thoughts to flow turbulently yet peacefully.

I had lived for many years. I remember when my eyes could see clearly and everything seemed crystal clear. The colours were well defined and I could tell the beginning from the end. The vastness of the beauty of seeing the world through youthful eyes was certainly something that I might have taken for granted. However, my mind was keen to notice this and it worked overtime to capture every moment so perfectly and I honestly can’t help but find myself in existence of those moments for hours in my old age. They call it dementia here but it feels like reliving the days of my youth. It breaks my heart to see how my children look at me these days. When I get into my trances, they seem to not understand me and it irritates and annoys them. I thought old age would be beautifully serine but here I am with eyes filling up with tears and longing for my sun to finally set.

I remember how beautifully I’d dance the night away for the better part of my youth. My hips would comfortably sway in the direction I’d instruct. My lips never forgetting to smile as my heart came to life with every tune that graced my eardrums. I was at the peak of my happiness. During those nights, strangers would turn into family even if just for hours and we’d share the burdens of our hearts, sometimes to the extent of having a breakdown and it felt a little better afterwards. Some of those connections went past a single night. My heart shutters just a little more now to know all of you are gone. Your suns had a meeting and agreed to set but forgot to fill mine in on the plan so my sun remained up. I have watched the ones I’ve loved leave me one by one. I have had to mourn you but it comforts me to dream about you sometimes even when I’m awake. Sometimes I forget that you are dead and I find myself talking to what I think is you. So they put me on medication that should help me remember not to bring you to reality. If I’m being honest, my mind which had once been my greatest asset now seemed to work against me and as it did, my heart shuttered further.

I can still feel the pain that came with my youth. However with the pain, happiness also came. The joy of holding my children for the first time. The joy of falling in love with their father. Raising these children together was the highlight of my now miserable life and those were many years that I appreciate and give thanks for. The pain of losing my best friend and partner was the start of my heartbreaking journey into old age. I’ve had to bury some of my children. Days that took my willingness to live with them. Each child I buried took a part of my heart and soul with them and my love, he took that and my mind with him when he left me. I know it’s only temporary but that wasn’t the plan. He was to hold my hand as we watched sunsets together. He was supposed to help me find my eye glasses when I forget where I placed them. He was supposed to still be holding me as we slowly allowed the night to take charge and tuck us safely into deep slumber. We were supposed to grow old together. I can’t help but feel angry at you for leaving me but I know I’m about to see you again. That thought is enough to cool my anger however much I feel betrayed.

I have lived a good life. It has been beautiful and ugly, happy and sad, healthy and sick, but never once did it seem worthless. Even now, however broken I feel, hearing my children and their children laugh in the house as they tell their silly jokes, makes it easy to enjoy being alive but I need to rest. I need to let go because my time is here. These flashbacks are getting longer and longer. My body fails further by the day. My mind dies with each and every fleeting second and my fraile body cannot keep up. I can feel the path being prepared for me and I can already feel my ancestors chanting my name as they prepare to welcome me home. I cannot wait for my grave stone to stand next to you in the ancestral burial grounds. To be with family I haven’t seen in what seems like ages. I am happy and honoured that I got a chance to walk on this world, among its inhabitants and to love some, hate some, learn from some, grow with some and even give birth to some. I got to feel the vulnerability that comes with being human and being a woman. The scare that comes with facing a future that’s not promised or foretold so we blindly walk into it. Sometimes we get caught in wrong leaps of faith but leaps carrying heavy lessons that we can choose to learn from or choose to be foolish. I chose the former so my days got safer and wiser as my choices were guided by the lessons of my past.

So as I go to sleep tonight, I will pray for my ancestors to welcome me home tonight and I hope they are merciful enough to do so.

Article by;

Vanessa Beyonce

A Peek Into A Dying Mind.

They say in death, we get a clear look down memory lane.

It’s happening again but this time the feeling is all too familiar because I’ve been down this road before. Sadly, I didn’t walk the worst and scary parts alone. I dragged you all down with me and I’m about to do the same thing to you again.

Talk of a lesson never being learnt regardless of the frequency of class attendance. It didn’t hurt me but I could tell from the looks on your faces when I came to that it hurt you. I wish I could tell you about how some days I am genuinely happy and I can feel blood flowing through my veins and during those days, I am genuinely alive. Some days are so lonely that even my own heartbeats become impossible to hear and it feels like I exist alone in a very lonely place. Some days, my heart breaks so loudly it transcends into physical pain. My legs shutter at the thought of carrying my own weight during those days, so I let my body rest in bed and before I feel okay again, weeks have gone by.

I cannot explain what causes these emotions and more so, their imbalance. I can however explain how I ended up here. At first it was the opium, from the time I broke my leg. They weren’t so easy to come by and I figured it would become an evident problem so I thought of a more accessible and less problematic solution. One that enabled me to live in the moment without so much worry or regret but only a curiosity for what the next second could hold if I played my cards right in the current. So cocaine did the job.

Eventually, the lows started to weigh more heavily on me and it killed me everyday. The happy days and I became estranged and before long I completely forgot what it felt like to be happy. The highs began to last for shorter and shorter periods so I knew I needed an upgrade and that’s when I was introduced to heroine. By this time you’d started noticing the changes and it gave you many sleepless nights. I wish I could show you how peaceful it felt and the world stopped being so grey. The clouds disappeared with each dose. I could be happy and in the paradise of my choosing. It was worth every shot. So when I say I got lost in the chase of the high, I really hope you believe me.

I’m dying. It’s happening again and I can’t stop it. I know this because my heart is breaking at the thought of your hearts breaking. My heart has only broken once during a high and that was when I first overdosed. I don’t know how to let you know that none of this is your fault. I know you will blame yourselves if you don’t find me in time but this is because of my choices. This is not your fault. I’m sorry and I hope that you know that I love you.

Article by;

Vanessa Beyonce.

MY END

Some people die long before they die to the rest of us

I am watching all of you here mourning me and I’m more than disgusted by the majority of you. I was here amongst you all at one point and oh, how unloved I felt. I was here amongst you and it brings me to tears to remember the struggles I’d been through. I keep listening to the stories you are giving and I can swear they are for your own shot at fame and it has nothing to do with me. It’s like a game of who can share the best story of my life in a sad, happy or depressed way.

I barely loved the most of you crying and wishing things had been different. Everytime I found my strength and got on my feet, someone was always there to remind me that the floor was my place. Suddenly it’s all about how I chose the floor when strength was always offered.

Shame on you for lying because I can’t give my side of the story. I am not sure but maybe that’s why someone once said that funerals are for the living. I can tell that this whole event and the tears aren’t for me but for the many times you let me down and now the guilt consumes and condemns you. I am not sorry that when it got too much I chose rest. I am not sorry that I don’t have to spend my days in the company of depression, anxiety and self-hate. I am not sorry that I don’t have to trade in my dignity anymore to get help.

I am not sorry that I don’t have to listen to the stories being spread by my family and friends about me. I am not sorry that I don’t have to die every morning I wake up. I’m not sorry that I chose to help myself and end it all because I was long dead before today. I can see all of you judging me and declaring me weak! I can see all of you suddenly pretend to care and to have so much information on mental health. I can hear all of you saying I should have asked for help.

I lived in a world where it seemed that everyone I encountered was either blind to my struggles, deaf to my cry for help and invisible to everyone I hoped would see me. I can see my lifeless body in this coffin that all of you want to touch.

This is the most peaceful I’ve looked in years. This is the most beautiful I’ve looked in years. As if that’s not enough, my coffin is more expensive than any money I’ve ever had and yet I can’t help but wonder why it had to get here for you to actually ‘care’.

It’s not that I did not care for my family but it is hard to care for others when the struggle to care for yourself is a task that I kept successfully failing at. It’s not about you and your guilt! It’s about me and the hate and loneliness I’d lived with for as long as I could remember. However, the story is now yours to narrate as you please because this world is no longer my home.

Article by;

Vanessa_Beyonce

YOU

It is the ones we love the most that can hurt us the most

He killed himself for you.
He sacrificed himself for you.
He chose you.
He always chose you.
The mistake he made was loving you.

He had desires before he met you.
He had a career before he met you.
He wanted to go places and he dreamt big before you.
His light shone bright before he met you.
After years, his light has dimmed because of you.
His desires have died out because of you.

He’s never had eyes for anyone but you.
He’s never entertained anyone but you.
He’s always been enchanted by you.
Forever a slave to you.
So now he is taken for granted by you.
He is disrespected by you.
He has to watch you entertain men and women who notice you.
His heart shatters in the most trechourous silence and loneliness because of you.

All of this because of his love for you.
This will however be the lesson I will carry in my heart.
After years of watching you two act like soldiers in a warzone yet so blind to the fact that the battle being fought may not be as subtle as intended because I noticed.
I got caught in the danger zone.
Love was once his advantage but now it’s his biggest disadvantage.
It may seem better to be alone than to watch someone destroy me like I have watched you recklessly destroy father.
Yet he stays because he loves you.

Article by;
Vanessa_Beyonce

TRAUMA

Something, or rather, someone beautiful can emerge from the worst of traumas

Trauma is beautiful. Not the part before the healing but the part after the healing. Not the action that leads to the trauma but how you emerge on the other side after healing from the trauma.

What most trauma victims don’t understand is that your trauma immediately differentiates you from those who’ve not known your trauma or know your trauma nonetheless because the event may be similar but the effect always varies. Your trauma is not supposed to make you normal. It’s supposed to make you different. It’s supposed to make you see things differently. It’s supposed to make you wiser. You are supposed to grow from it.I read a book once that said, pain is the key to change, the key to growth.

Trauma brings a kind of pain that cannot be explained to the few that haven’t experienced it. Trauma breaks you to your core and numbing yourself only prolongs the breaking and reforming process into who the new you is supposed to be. Trauma kills your previous version and you have to stop mourning that version of you because it is literally stunting the growth of the new version of you that’s supposed to be growing and thriving.

It is hard to say the least but growing up isn’t easy either. You have to learn what pain is by falling or getting hit, you have to learn how to walk by constantly falling, you have to learn how to work hard by constantly failing and getting humiliated. For the success to come, pain has to follow in short pursuit. It is the process of growth, of rejuvenation or better yet, the process of being reborn but not into the same person that you were, rather, into a better version of you.

It’s unfortunate that whatever happened, happened but how you let the aftermath play out determines where you end up. A victim or a survivor. Trauma isn’t picky and it’s not a matter of who deserves it and who doesn’t. Trauma goes against all odds of entitlement. Trauma strives to teach. A lesson no book can teach. No parent can shield you from. Trauma sets you aside and leaves you in the middle of nowhere and lets you find your way. If you decide to stay lost, then trauma leaves you there. If you decide to start your journey to a better place then your trauma might end up being the best thing that ever happened to you.

Trauma gives you a purpose. Look at all these privileged people trying to find purpose or rather a fancy name for a lesson learnt via pain. We cannot escape the reality of knowing that our pain is what ultimately brings us to a state of who we are supposed to be or exist as.

Rise above the trauma. It’ll be worth it. Trust the process.

Article by;

Vanessa_Beyonce

If Bad Luck Was A Person

“The world in the whisky bottle was as real as it got for me. It was as happy as it got for me.It was as serine as it got for me. It was as far away as I got from this horrible and treacherous world.

So after a few milliliters into the whisky bottle, it didn’t hurt to be unemployed anymore. The fact that everyone around me seemed to be on a highway to success, I couldn’t help but feel like I hadn’t left the starting position yet. My humiliation turned to bravery and invincibility became my ultimate reality at that point. I suddenly had brilliant ideas of how to make money so that sober me wouldn’t have to feel so poor. All this though, was all dependent on how many bottles of whisky I’d taken.

I felt like a success after a few milliliters into the whisky bottle. The pain from my failing marriage didn’t seem as painful anymore. I only lived in the moments when we were happy. I healed over the memories of the days she loved me. I remembered the peace that settled on my heart when she’d call my name and it was automatic that I’d smile immediately. Now, there’s only disgust, disrespect, hate and regret when she calls my name and with each and every call, she shutters my heart further. So that night I drank because I felt loved after a few milliliters into the whisky bottle.

I felt like the world’s greatest father after a few milliliters into the whisky bottle. I existed in the memories of when my children loved me, respected me and identified me as their father. Now, even my precious daughter cannot look me in the eye and she has to work while in school to provide for herself because I can’t. Now, even my sons cannot listen to a word I have to say and they even talk back to me because they have zero respect for me as a man and as a father. So that night I drank because when I was a few milliliters into the whisky bottle, I didn’t feel so shameful.

That night as I drowned myself further in the whisky bottle, I felt happier. As I drowned myself further in the whisky bottle, the more I felt like a man and the more I felt like I deserved to live. I hadn’t realised that it was getting dark but I really had to get home because I didn’t want to add infidelity suspicions into the list of horrible things my wife accuses me of. I got in my car and drove.

Within the blink of an eye, he was in front of the car and I didn’t have enough time to hit the brakes. It was dark and he stood there in front of the car like he wanted me to hit him. By the time the car stopped, I’d already hit him. However as honestly as I testify, over and over again, no one will believe me because the breathalyzer rendered me a liar during my first arrest and continues to render me a liar today, as I look at your faces as you listen to me testify. I am a good man. All I did was drink and drive and as I drove home, I encountered a suicidal man. I was sober enough to know that I am telling the truth.

Thank you for your time and I hope before giving the verdict, consider the possibility that this could really be the truth because it is.”

Article by;

Vanessa_Beyonce