It’s a good day to not make people feel small, happy Sunday💜

I live for genuine smiles and what they do to my heart.
Smile more please :)

*I know this made you smile*

I still hear the names I’ve been called.
Their laughter still rings in my ears when I said “I don’t know what’s wrong with me but my insides hurt”

I’m protective of my dreams. Once, sharing who I want to be tomorrow brought painful days I never want to think of.
I’ve been told I’d never make it as the things I dreamt of becoming.

It’s uncomfortable when I feel eyes raking over me, I’m reminded of the whispers behind my back and the disgusted orbs I used to be greeted with.

Physical contact is a no. I try my very best not to offend arms eager to hold me but a mere brush of a skin against mine sends the whole of my body through a tremor and every inch of me is reminded of the touches I begged to run from.

I prefer listening because my words were never acknowledged. It’s a strange feeling, being heard.

Neither of these are poetic, nor are they beautiful. But I think my heart is learning to be grateful for both the rose and the thorns.

Fleeting Scenes: Between Provision & Uncertainty

Inundated with her thoughts, she almost forgot to tell the taxi redat, “weraj ale.” After hopping off the minibus, she walked a few extra miles than she usually did. A loud honk snapped her back to reality, the reality of her crossing speedy traffic. “Watch where you’re walking,” the driver exclaimed at her angrily. Yet, she didn’t seem to care much.

How am I going to tell my father? And, my baby... how am I going to look at his eyes? What am I going to do? Jesus! Jesus... Are you even there? Is this really one of your ways of disciplining me? Because I am not liking it one bit. And I don’t even see how this isn’t beyond my ability… You know, sometimes... sometimes—

“Emayie!” he interrupted her. She hugs him tight and gets teary, but shams. “Ema, the teacher gave me a sticker today, look,” he says before stretching his hand to show her his star. She smiles at him with what feels like a knot in her intestines. At least you have a reminder of your beloved teacher now. “High five, my boy!” she cheered. “Is that Enquye (my jewel)?” a thick voice asked. “Yes, Abba. Ema is here,” shouted the little boy. She shushed him before replying, “Abba, I’ll see you in a second. Let me just get changed.” She went to the bathroom and immediately opened the tap to cancel the noise.

Then she looked deeply at her reflection in the mirror. She smiled before tearing up. She sobbed before she laughed madly. She gritted her teeth and swallowed all her pain down, washed up and went to her paps.

Their house has three rooms—the kitchen, the bathroom and the bedroom/living room/everything else. She walked a few steps to the bedroom, but turned around and got into the kitchen instead. She prepared the butagaz stove that seemed very worn out. She lit the match and put it close to the stove so it could catch the flames. Trial after trial, the stove still didn’t catch the fire. Angry, she threw the empty matchbox and took a closer look at the stove. Its oil compartment was dry. No drop was left.

No match, no oil, no salary, no school, no medical care... What else? What else have you prepared for this wretched soul of mine?

“Enquye, aren’t you coming?”
“I’ll be there in a minute!”

She walks into the small bedroom that’s decorated with photo frames and bible verse posters. She sat by her father’s bed and held his hand. They felt better than usual. “You seem unwell, my dear, what happened?” “Uhm,” her mouth opened, her heart swelling in pain.
“Ema, since it’s Friday, can I play that game on your phone?” She smiles at him and unlocks her phone before giving it to him. Giving herself a few seconds before looking back at her father’s eyes. “I don’t know where to start, Abbaye. I am lost.” He repositions his sit and looks at her with eyes that look like the cosmos. “You can start anywhere, my daughter. I’ll listen,” he began. “My ears haven’t failed me yet.” He chuckled at the last bit making her smile. “They fired me, Abba.” A warm tear made its way down her cheeks. “They fired me, and aren’t willing to give me my salary. I have not paid Leul’s school fee. Your check-up is in a week. I just discovered that we’d ran out gas. I just don’t know.” He grinned at her and held her hand tight. “My daughter,” he pulled her into a hug. “God is with us, do not be overwhelmed.”
Oh yeah, he definitely is with us. But heyyy He seems to really confuse struggle with blessings when He provides, huh... After she calmed down a bit, he continued, “And what’s their reason for dismissing such a hard-working employee?”
“Not enough budget to sustain 10 janitors,” is what they told me.
“Wasn’t the company on the papers for making a great profit last month?”
She shrugged sighing heavily.
“Ayzosh, lije,” he said. “This, too, shall pass anyway.”

No you don’t understand this language is just so beautiful.

And and vent if you want something off your chest.
If you want to talk about something that made you happy or completely drained you @DebbieTesfaye.

Wait today isn’t Friday? *sobs in losing track of time and stress*

Grateful for the wins and the losses🖤

Bout to bombard you guys with random pieces :)

“I don’t like relating the world to myself or stand in the line of labels chosen for me.”

“I’ve noticed there’s this bubble of anonymity you live in. Hidden from the world and yourself. You do things how you want them done and attempt to carve the minds of others into processing the way you need them to.”

“What are you implying exactly?”

“Perhaps it’s not about your indifference to the world but your need to stay in control. Heap of your days were filled with people controlling how you act and feel, but now you get to live on your own and the first thing you do is chase control.”

“I think about giving up a lot, to just stop trying.”

“Surrender and losing control isn’t always as bad as they tell you it is, why don’t you then? Give up I mean”

“Then what? What happens without the constant tension to do better? Or the hard work? Without the sweating blood and palpitations?”

“Perhaps you get to wind down? And breathe?”

“But I see that as giving liberty to my repressed self, which is a rampant route I’m not willing to take. So I won’t give up, not because I have this drive to become someone but because the idea of nothingness is daunting.”

She said she feared me and thought I hated her because of the way I always looked at her. She said I would shrivel up my forehead skin till an 11 was at the center of it. She said she had always imagined she had angered me in some way, and wondered if it was ever something she said, the way she wore or anything. I said "Woman! That's not what I do when I get angry. That is what happens to me when I'm confused. Confused about what to say and how to act every time I'm near you. I don't even move until you've walked out because I'm afraid I might fall or something."

"When you come up and talk to me, I don't fall but yet my neurons get clumsy so they crash into each other in the hallways and fall, and then I can't speak, or my knees are twitching, or my back is itching. And when you touch me... I get swooned at first. Like actually and then I get swooned by guilt for having imagined anything more with you. I mean who am I, right?"

There it happens again, witnessing parents making their kids feel like an absolute failure.

Genuinely, at this point I’m exhausted beyond belief. Talking about the basics of parenthood and being a child is a waste of time.
Repeating the words I’ve said before, I’m no parent but I don’t need to be one to see how the parents are making the lives of their children miserable.

There’s no essence to this rant, I’m just pissed.
May the good lord protect us from making our children question their value.