splatteringdroplets

[splatteringdroplets]

I am u     n          r

    a v     e          l     i n

   g

        .

slice me up, take me apart, see what happens when it’s all laid out. examine every nuance, analyze every thought, see how far I can be stretched out. my ends are fraying, the thread coming undone, and still You tear up my seams, ripping them and i am p   u   l   l   e   d, everything seems to dissolve, and the river flows and beats on, the sand i try to hold f                                                                                                                                    a                                                                                                                                   l                                                                                                                                   l                                                                                                                                 s through my fingers, the remnants of everything i thought i was and tried to be.

i have been building on a broken foundation and my uneven house is no longer enough. You tear it all down to build something better. in this at least i can hope this is a beautiful unraveling.                                                      

[splatteringdroplets]

I am

I am a poem, waiting to be read, an open book to those who are willing to read in between the lines. (The beauty of poems is metaphor. You have to want to know me before you’ll get anywhere.) I am a song, lilting and free, a melody of days past and hopes future, but not found sung by any ordinary songbird. (Songs are pure emotion bursting into sound.)

I am a symphony, harmonic and dense, ringing on endlessly after the music stops, resonant with dreams the earth has always known. (Symphonies are complex, nuanced, more than can be heard.)

I am a story, halfway through the writing, what comes next is anybody’s guess, yet I suspect in the end it will all make sense.

(Stories are authored and mine’s not over yet. Come along and see where the next scene might find me.)

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enigma

I am flesh and bone, held together precariously, cautiously, peril always near. The slightest misstep, an avalanche I might never recover from.

Loose ligaments, cranky collagen. What are limits? I leave prescribed guidelines in the dust, stretching far past what is good, right, the way it should be.

Too much laxity, never enough discipline. Limits exist for a reason.

But my soul? Oh, it longs to soar past the confines of mere existence. It dances to rhythms my body could never keep up with, would certainly end in pain and further things to fence myself away from. It is life and brilliant color and triumphant song, relentless indefatigable uninhibited.

How to reconcile these two impossibilities, coinciding as if unaware of each other. Limitless, lively, and so limited. Free, vast, containing multitudes and constrained.

I am flesh, blood, precarious, cautious, limited, soaring, dancing, color, song, relentless enigma.

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Framily

Those who’d do anything for you— The ones who can’t say no when dire straits arise. Who know exactly how to make you mad and like to use that knowledge.

Silly inside jokes. Words nobody but those with the bond of frustrating years and formative years find funny or understand.

Shared trauma and a thousand different kaleidoscope ways to turn the picture and somehow even formed in the same furnace results in different recipes, addictions, snares and the same facial expressions.

Or are they those who want to know you? Who would do those things nobody else would dare? Listen to you ugly cry over everything and nothing And don’t use it against you.

Laughing at the serious, sad, depressing things that come out of  your mouths when you’re together. Going the extra mile to make sure those dire straits never arise.

Shared soul, shared purpose, shared vision and a thousand different stories and origins, heartbreaks, formative moments and you still sing the same song, harmonizing perhaps, but in the same key.

[splatteringdroplets]

Laundry Lines Cross Seas

Why must my heart be strung across the world-- Inhabiting two lands, two spaces, and the people who have scattered from them?

In my heart they live close together, brothers who commune frequently over dinner – chapati one day and burgers the next.

Oh, they talk! It’s an odd mix of Kiswahili and English, but it fits together so beautifully that no one suspects they once lived oblivious of each other!

My mind cannot reconcile the 8,488 miles that separate Mombasa and Saint Louis.

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When I am tired, I easily forget truth and fail to have hope

Musings of an Insomniac by Tiffany N.

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Just as the light shines, persevering through the dark, so love cuts through hate.

Dispersion by Tiffany N.

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We fit together Like a perfect harmony. Our souls? Meant to sing.

Melodious by Tiffany N.

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Thunder rolls the dark clouds nearer, Creeping, stirring, churning, Violent in turbulence. The tint of the sky shifts to eerie swamp-water green. Your hairs stand on end, a shiver tingles down your spine, Winds whip your hair and skin. Droplets of rain pelt rapidly and pellets of ice bounce like balls off the nearby rooftops, the ground, the metal dumpster. Lightning strikes, tumultuous racket surrounds. And as suddenly as it seems all changed, normalcy returns and the sun sets in pink and purple splendor.

Tempest by Tiffany N.

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Exhaustion consumes me. Gravity pulls me down. I need some caffeine.

Give Me Sleep by Tiffany N.

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In my time on that little plot of land in Likoni, Thursday meant one thing: chapati. Kenya’s quintessential food, at least in my mind’s eye, a round, thick bread, perfect for consumption with beans, ugali, or sukuma wiki. Occasionally I would attempt to help make it— to the tune of Neddy’s beautiful voice, ringing: “My dear, you are really trying.” Or George and Julius’ inevitable laughter at my less-than-round rolled chapati attempts. I never enjoyed cooking before those times, but we bonded through creating ropes of dough, curling it around so it grew into a lump resembling a snail’s shell. We took our pins and flattened the flour mixture, back and forth, back and forth, while we sang songs of praise, shared tales, and laughed and laughed and laughed. We’d fry the ovals, filling the air with a savory smell that beckoned us to steal a bite, and then we’d clean up in much the same manner we cooked, together in community. When I say I miss chapati, my words miss the mark. What I yearn for again is those memories of friendship, grown and sustained while creating and consuming those flour discs.

Chapati by Tiffany N.

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The chlorophyll in the jade leaves of the grass darkens, a result of glorious rain, complete with brilliant bolts of light and booming rolls of sound. Oh, beckon me remember that even the cruelest winter must end.

kijani by Tiffany N.

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Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.

Louis L’Amour (via feellng)

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Sometimes I am much like Mary, upset—where have they taken my Lord? Circumstances blur my vision; Oh, where are you, God? She mistook him for a gardener. What countless mistakes have I made? Do I look in the face of the work of the Lord and name him coincidence, science, or even, the church, entirely deaf to Christ saying my name? Occasionally I will hear him call, but more often I am weeping Mary. They have taken my Lord and I cannot find him. My hope was shown death and cannot fathom the greatest reality of Jesus right beside me. Other times I am like Didymus, the Twin. Oh Thomas, how could you not believe? (I chide him, but mostly I chide myself— why can I still not believe after all I have seen?) “I shall never believe! Not until I reach my fingers into his pierced side, Not until I touch the holes they drilled in his hands.” Oh, for Thomas, the eyes of his heart required sight. And even I, a witness to great things, must continually remind myself of truth. Yet the disciple whom Christ loved, in the midst of the tomb, viewing folded linen cloths, the absence of the recently crucified man, concluded in belief that Jesus was alive. My Lord and my God. I believe! Help my unbelief.

Resurrection by Tiffany N.

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White and yellow frangipani flowers blooming from my hair. Dona’s chubby cheeks and shy little smile, losing fear. The warmth from the patch of concrete upon my back as I gazed up at the twilight. (as i brushed my teeth at night, i gazed eastward at the stars. they seemed close enough for my fingers to grasp.) A tiny, venturing lizard crawls on to my hand. Fanta Pineapple fizz and talk of life, across from Shali’s Groceries. A good book, a swingset, a cool breeze bringing relief. (i laid under my mosquito-netting canopy. a brilliant exhaustion, a bed fit for a princess.) The first rain of the season—a welcome, brilliant, bursting catharsis. Hearing that still small voice. Endless games of Dutch Blitz and Jungle Speed. (the dreams, the constellations I fathom. they are not out of reach.) You are the way, the truth, the life. (i am your child, disciple, friend.) You give life, and give it in the full.

Mombasa by Tiffany N.

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hijack.

Is discipline within me?

Can my art grow from anything but momentary passion that begs itself to be written, flows from my brain, my heart, my all through my arms, fingers, jumps to the keys on which I type?

Can I torture the words, pull them and drag a poem screaming from its hiding cavern, motivated not by love or feeling or emotion, but for the sake of habit and growth?

Can one force the music?