dreams
deaths,
and the
dull inbetweens
by jendella
Copyright Š Jendella 2013 The right of Jendella to be identiied as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 First published in Great Britain in 2013 Printed and bound in the Netherlands All rights reserved. The digital edition of this book is available freely for digital distribution as a whole entity, unedited and unaltered from its original state. Individual poems or extracts from this book are not permitted to be reproduced or published in any form, digital or otherwise, without the express written consent of the author. The print edition of this book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author. Design, images and photography by Jendella.
thank yous joanne, sarah, benson, low and Yahweh - Giver of Life, Fountain of Inspiration
dedication for anyone who has ever been misunderstood
l’artiste pouring my soul out to a crowd of Disinterested Strangers is not conducive to my development as “Une Artiste” my bones are too fragile for such a baptism by ire and i don’t doubt that stronger hopefuls have done that but i am not one of them
after i picked myself up from the loor of a concrete corridor after crying to no one about nothing and hiding a weak moment behind a ire escape (a real life ire escape) i vowed that i would never touch stage to recite poems to Disinterested Strangers i have no fan club to ill the audience conjuring pep rallies from the shadows a hangover from my shy state or hermit status or ingrained fear of opening up to strangers
(yet there i stood doing exactly that as if a spotlight would protect me) every ounce of performance has left me no more hot air just a crumpled bag full of words that will not stop writing so i reacquaint myself with my irst love-
page. we meet again so quiet and attentive ready to hang onto my every word
i sold myself down a lonely river if they ask where i am direct them to the bags of bones loating face down swollen choked on chipped shoulders and broken hearts bloated and if they ask what happened tell them it was the parable of a girl who tried but could not do it alone
lashbacks what brings you back here the scene remains uninished the script half written the ending hanging on a set of ellipses you can see the characters the conversation you only half had you remember the taste of the words on your breath you can recognise the colour of the sky the way the sun shines you walk the same earth but you’re not the same person she’s walking a few steps behind you you can recognise the bridge and the bench and the path and the lake you walk the same earth but you’re not the same person she’s walking a few steps behind you her footsteps growing lighter
hurricanes in singapore i have never seen a sky so red before i have never seen destruction painted as beautifully in all my life as that night we lay side by side in singapore two pitch black twisters framed by the iery clouds fought it out in a tug of war they two-stepped back and forth charting a terrible course across the horizon two columns of spiralling black passion meshing together then pulling apart the sky beats red in the background the bloody red of everbeating heart that night i understood that turmoil so epic could only be the result of something so pure and precious only something so beautiful only something so delicate could result in a spectacle so earth shattering and tremendous i was excited by the doom of it all i must admit apocalypse so close destruction so amiss i squeezed your hand tight and knew i'd never loved you more than that night we danced as hurricanes in singapore
her marks she left her marks on you invisible, indelible ink curled around your neck and your wrists and your ankles her carefree cursive i bet her lips traced the capillaries of your veins i bet her name is hand-stitched in the folds of your heart that’s why you won’t let me look closely i can sense the indentations of her ingertips across your collarbone i can see the lines she traced in your hair on an easy summer’s afternoon the world as spectator the blades of grass as witnesses to your calm, collected affection i can see the look in your eyes when you have to remind yourself that i am not her and you are a new you four rotations stronger than how you once were my love is not a vice and i will prove it to you i will leave no mark no scar no burn or blisteration only traces of sweetness on your tongue
letter to ben it is a curious thing to walk this earth with unrestrained arrogance knowing that you own it and everyone owes you something and if they don't give it your history is to take it you walk with conidence of your entitlement disdain coursing through your veins your blond eyelashes barely hide centuries of contempt i don't know how they did it but your fathers taught you well you're only ten years old they really taught you well
heart disease this city will give me heart disease between choking on the aroma of ‘the big smoke’ and choking on the panic that rises in my throat this city feels like it will kill me crush me underneath the weight of expectation i’m rubbing the lamp ‘til my knuckles are red raw give me three wishes instead of a sink full of dirty dishes soaking in hard water these bitter pills are hard to swallow with a glass of hard water i sit in a train carriage suffocating with claustrophobia my heart beats in my chest trying to smash through my ribs it’s screaming for open pastures and still waters but for now it seems i’m dining with my enemies awkward silence heavy lidded irises heavy laden limbs a furrowed brow deliver me from my enemies i drag my trolley case of burdens behind me pulling the weight through streets steeped with heartbreak and isolation
this is my island seven thousand emotional miles from blood kind or kindred i’m in a city illed with bodies writhing and dying but every moment is spent alone marching to the sound of sighing the sound of silence the same faces, the same quiet blank stares and strange choirs singing the same refrain over and over i sit and i wait i wait for the wait to be over for the next chapter of my life to begin to remind me why i’m here and why i came to this city of giants and heart disease
cryptic cries for help posthumous studies show that her heart was sewn to her wrists in riddles plain as day for those that searched but why would you?
longing longing is: the hollow in my heart where i keep my most recent memories of you the dip in my collarbone where your chin would rest the space in the small of my back where your hands would clasp the gaps in my sentences waiting for your inish longing is: a vacuum shaped like the curve of your lip the arch of your brow the timbre of your laugh i fear i may collapse upon myself from the inside out
kissing kissing you is the remedy for a drought i never knew i suffered your lips on my neck are two golden lines that emphasise my whole existence this moment is real it's happening and i never knew what satisfaction was until i cradled your head against me our chests rise and fall together breathing in time this is the sweetest poetry watching you sleep knowing that your head is illed with the best of intentions and dreams about our future i know your touch when i'm half awake i can feel you watching me a tender smile playing on your lips no one can fathom our intimacies the depth of a glance the knowledge in a smile private jokes played out by my ingertips tracing secret scripts on your forearm you are my hidden masterpiece my own personal mythology a book of possibilities gifted by God Himself words will never be enough to communicate what this is but i hope you know that each time my heart pumps blood around my body it's like my lips saying i do over and over again
detached the spaces between the words of the conversation we never had have driven the gaps between our eyes further apart a smile from a distance only half crosses the void between our two hearts and i swore i would never show you my heart again so it is of no consequence to me really
i don't know if you will miss me or the idea of me the idea of who you thought i was to you and even though i will miss you it will only be the idea of you what i thought we were what i thought we had my friend betrayal is an irrevocable thing my friend i forgive but i don't forget
crying myself to sleep i cried myself to sleep and i woke up baptised with a new vision a new seeing new cataracts left in my eyes formed in the chrysalis of pain
when she left i woke up to the sound of drumming, someone singing in the night. she was saying that she was leaving this village, she would depart this soil. she sang, she screamed, they danced. i was too scared to run out after her, i knew in the darkness she found her domain. so i slid myself further into the covers, wrapped in a sweaty mess of tangled sheets that stiled my sobs and reasoned that i wanted her to go, she came with too many complications and she couldn’t take everything because surely she hadn’t given me everything. but when morning came nothing remained. i don’t know what she expected me to do that morning as i dragged my heels through the dust. she really had taken everything, even that which i had thought was mine was really a gift from her. our lake lay barren and empty. only my frustrated sweat ran down my forearms to the ground, dripping between my ists which angrily punched at the dirt. the little beads curled and mixed with the swirling dust. not a sign of the so-called life that was there before. i looked towards the shimmering horizon and remembered the long summers that we spent swimming in the cool waters of the lake. i remembered the dangerous days caught in the rapids of many rivers, twisting and turning, being churned through the bends and dragged along the bottom.
i would claw my way to the surface for air before being cruelly dragged back down by my ankles and when she stopped from her games and tired with her play, she would spit me back into this lake, the small piece of control she gave me, where i would wallow and bask until she dared me to dance again. “well those days are gone,” i sighed with either relief or resignation, but i wish she had just left me the lake, our lake, my lake, my comfort. she couldn’t leave without her spite cutting me like a knife one last time. i think she liked the taste of blood more than the water, perhaps a shark in maiden disguise, but “still waters run deep” she always assured me with a smile. i’m not sure how long i knelt in the dust, the oppressive heat eventually suffocated me and i passed out. i’m not sure how long i lay there curled up on my side, but when i awoke with sandgrains coating my lips and my eyelids, i saw him walking towards me, like some form of mirage. his white clothes seemed to glow blue against the reddened landscape, his golden skin so pure against the faded horizon. at the very sight of his kind eyes i cried tears i didn’t know i had. they lined my face clearing a path through the dirt in my cheeks. i cried that she had left me and i always knew that she probably would. my throat croaked dry and rasping sobs over and over, “she took all the water,” i croaked and i cried, “she took the lowers and the grass and the ish and the lake.”
he looked at me with knowing eyes, drawing from his side a sword, it’s blade lat and wide catching the glint of the hardened sun. i cowered in the dirt as he drove it into my side and water gushed forth, my secret stream. it poured onto the ground, washing the dirt from my clothes, my tears mingled with the low, a sweet taste on my lips, refreshment was mine. i ran towards him and hugged him, i danced and i sang and he laughed with me with those knowing eyes. as water lowed from my side soaking the cracked ground, hope once again swelled within. and i will dance and sing and tears of joy will be cried, as long as water lows from my side.
it still lows from my side.
christianity christianity is a feminine religion the men told me this before they grew their beards and bowed their heads facing east christianity is a masculine religion the women told me this as they massaged my temples twisting thick braids of knowledge for my crown i like the poetry of arabic on my tongue but i’ve hidden vanity in my hair and refuse to be shrouded i ind comfort in the solid arms of my sisters though they may never accept me in my scriptured state and my christianity is neither masculine or feminine contrary to their calculations it is wrapped in divinity irrevocably fastened to my human heart
a box that’s what it came in thin pages edged in gold smoothly bound in black leather two satin ribbons sandwiched between the ivory paper encased in a modest box made of reinforced card smart but hardly concise
what i’ve never known i've never known religion religion that hangs over my head its claws curling around my throat to choke and inhibit my mind and my freedom i've never known that religion that would bring me to my knees and keep me there grovelling crawling through the dirt bloody shins and ragged kneecaps ingernails caked with mud lips coated with dust i've never known that religion that would strip me of my dignity peeling back the skin on my forearms for unbearable scrutiny a religion built on whispers and crooked humanity lying tongues and mute justice i have never known that religion that i see people dance to like they're treading on eggshells like they walk on hot coals that unpleasable deity who draws blood from your children that comes out of its idol or painting to strangle you with its bare hands that religion where the backs of women are bent by burdens that belong to their fathers their brothers their husbands and uncles where men are stretched lat by expectations little girls are foot-bound, wing-clipped and kept inside little boys logged with strips of manhood and other people’s pride
that religion that binds a family together until they are bleeding the rough twine of words cutting through dermis and bone barbed wire fences around hearts littered like mineields in a pious home i will never know that religion but what i do know is Love what i know about Love is 66 books long two millennia strong it is made up of love songs and repentance psalms unrightable wrongs righted by the Son it is a thorned crown and a borne cross humanity’s gain and one Man’s loss it is a loving and perfect God despaired at man’s plight debased Divinity, Righteous Sacriice it is truth and narrow paths justice and avoided wrath everyday acknowledged grace in my sullied imperfection it is the certainty of resurrection patience in my deception it is the words we avoid like sin debt holy it is moving from a position that was once lowly to now approaching Eternity boldly it is the beauty of the words ‘Christ has forgiven’ this is all i know of Love and religion
the sublime conidence of youth immortal longings intertwine with slim cigar smoke sipping liquor from a stranger’s cup between tokes at night we don’t slumber - we wander dancing out the paths of joy ridden hondas hazy memories of the good times but we remember the alibis we have complex stories to cover lies to disguise bruises and glazed eyes our existence is based on metaphors lyrics philosophise our antics tell me what’s living if your heartbeat’s not frantic
we don’t know regret yet
grey when i was younger i saw in technicolour and the rainbow did not mix and blend each colour stood solidly against the other black and white black and white we took bites of green apples with white teeth and red lips and red lips told white lies that were exposed in the whites of our eyes and our irises traced yellow paths through a purple world described with black words and those black words didn’t change unless we moved from graphite to thick bodied berol pens in royal blue the colour of our imagination but now i’m older and there are no boundaries anymore apart from the full stop of our education where they told us that black was the absence of light and white was the sum of the spectrum but they never once explained grey or its children they never explained that grey is not simply the middle parting of polarity or that it does not simply sit on the fence they never explained the way it spills over both sides and coats our retinas and lenses or the way it lines the insides of our mouths and pools at the centre of the cerebral cortex
they never explained that as i walked i would cut swathes of grey in my stride or that i would pass by grey crumpled on a street corner a thousand untold stories in grey eyes what prayer do you pray for the homeless? what words hold weight in their grey pockets? what do you pray over a man on death row? what words will cut hope into his eye sockets? how can i carve truth from the grey that’s settled around my neck? see there is no such thing as black or white just intermittent shades of grey i banished grey prayers from my grey lips in hope that when i cut grey panels from my grey chest i will ind a heart that still beats bright red
one for your children dem-dem say we no care about politics but i sure say we dey more political dan most of dem - abeg! now dis one na for una pickin i was born in a country where politics boiled over from oga's meat pot and ran through sun-hardened streets as rivers of blood blood ighting blood brothers dey bi enemies friends dey bi foes civil war an biafran woes i was born in a country where we don see military dictatorships i sat at de feet of my fathers an uncles my mothers an aunties an listened to how dem dey yarn about babangida, abacha, generals and military coups i sat at de feet of my fathers an uncles my mothers an aunties an listened to how dem dey yarn about failing infrastructure embezzlement and missing aid money general fatcat and chief owollaowollabighead i was born in a city where muslims an christians dey ight with axes an torches burning where de neighbour to grandmamma dey don beat am black an blue til no more her eyes can she see through dis na politics i grew with we don belle full of pepe
now dis one na for una pickin we dey live in a country where politics be ingrained in the membrane of your melanin depending on your colouring dem no go learn to talk to us dem talk over our heads like say we be small pickin when we dey see more grown tins dan dey see with de whole collection of dey jaded eyeballs my politics be ingrained in my mindframe i no dey interested in your plump po-lieticians dem no answer my question when i go ask it of am dey dance around my question like dem wear tap shoe dey go dance ajasco toronto drowning out my question with inconsequential tap-tap-tapping dey yarn big grammar with dey off-white teeth but now dis one na for una pickin mama tell me say from when i be small small that life would be harder because i am a woman and a black woman at that dis she no learn from a feminist handbook dis i no go learn from a citizenship class in school, abi? dis na fact of life born from the experience of my mothers and grandmothers
my aunties and cousins each one a testimony of political hardship and activism that started with simply doing wetin dem be wan do paying no attention to ye-ye unspoken rules an now dis one na for una pickin me i don need your politics at-all at-all i carry enough politic for head when de police dey call my mother coloured names an knock on my door with handcuffs for my innocent brother i have enough politic under my arm when dey riot in de street colour against colour when a whole family dey toss am out black bags an sad belongings de bailiff calling “make dem clear commot!” an teacher tell another kid when dem hear of dream big “eye go come down!” because dem no go make am past parole until you go carry my politic for head until you go wave lag for a real cause instead of running to ight capitalist political wars for de big man with de big eye corporate begging for more dan dey lot but dem-dem go leave us with bottom-pot or we just go chop gari my friend, e don do una it keep una politics and me, i'll ight for my own
jendella is a writer and photographer. deaths, dreams and the dull inbetweens is her irst literary publication, following on from time and distance and where the devil won't go, two volumes of photography work published in 2011. she lives in south london with her husband and collection of cameras and fountain pens. jendella.co.uk @JENDELLA jendella.tumblr.com