i once read that the self is composed of a thousand souls.
the amalgamation of a thousand lives once lived;
thousands of fates intertwined by thousands of decisions.
when i look in the mirror and i see my face — the product of a thousand different love stories — i fall in love with my reflection a little more.
chaos gave birth to me
a solid form, a body that within it contains a universe.
the neurons in my brain light up like constellations in the night sky
shaping celestial maps of all my thoughts, feelings and sensations.
i am the centre of everything, and yet i am nothing.
i walk into museums, i walk into galleries
and see the past encased in fossils, in paintings and in books.
the stories of lives once lived commemorated in beautiful ways,
perfect and timeless.
fantastical stories, ones i can entertain but never fully fathom because they are not mine.
the world is billions of years old, the universe older:
but how can i accept this when i’m uncertain of even my own past?
who am i? who was i? who could i have become?
at the age of 21 i have embodied a thousand people.
i have a tendency to take the ones i like and commemorate them in beautiful ways,
perfect and timeless.
but are the others not worthy?
the tragic versions, the undesirable ones…
those whose stories are of grief and anger, disappointment and despair
made pariahs in their own flesh, suppressed and shamed.
do they not deserve to be honoured too?
sometimes i’ll find them in a familiar song, an old poem of mine or a picture from years ago
and they feel foreign, almost. like strangers.
why can’t i resonate with them? are their wounds not mine? do i not still bear their scars?
one of the thousand cries out from somewhere deep within. their voice has been buried for a long time.
do you not remember how you suffered then?
how you will suffer inevitably throughout your life?
there is no period of existence that is void of pain. and that pain has created you.
everything i endured has become me; i can choose to forget but i will never destroy.
if you asked me to describe myself now, i’d tell you my most treasured things.
american blues. african jazz. neo soul. tropical fruit. ayurveda. the smell of incense. castor oil. box braids. waist beads. abstract art. 20th century existentialism. romance films from the 90s.
a man on a tea plantation in kenya who i never came to know, but drink chai in the memory of.
a desk in ndola, filled with the scattered writings of a man whose face is an irretrievable memory yet i echo him with my own ink stained pages.
memories of the sea and a cloudy sky
mother’s milk and light.
within me are the thousands of suns that have come before me
and i am bound to their fate: to radiate, to occupy space temporarily until i begin to fade
victim to entropy
my body imperceptibly exploding into thousands of microscopic stars —
that will reunite again in a new form, a new combination
a new identity
while i burn out
no longer alive in the memories of others.
a fantastical story
a nameless, faceless ancestor
unidentifiable.
my submission for @deepcutzine on instagram! check out the first issue here :)
