After a long dry spell, I’ve decided to dip my toe back into some creative writing. And how fortuitous, it’s Inktober! The good folks over at Kugali Media have been kind enough to come up with prompts for those of us on the Mother Continent who need a little inspiration. So, for this month’s Sunday installations, I’ll be using selected prompts for the week and trying to bring them to life!

ANCIENT – a poem

“Do you think about us?” whispers the grave

A question and indictment;

a truth which burns – for I do not

In quiet times, perhaps I hear

In dark of sleep, perhaps I see

There is so little thought, given to these

Truths of the soul and soil

Yet from them we are born and live

Back to them our breath we’ll give

FAVOURITE FOOD – a memory

I remember less of the taste, or the smell, than I do of the feeling. Warm, and full. Sated and smiling after a heavy meal of sadza and more beef, tomato, onion and veggie stew than someone my size should have been able to ingest – these were good times. Food brought out the best of us. On a full stomach my father was hilarious, my mother magnanimous and my siblings happy. I was content, after a fashion.

But things change, don’t they? Sometimes over long periods of time – a young man with ambitions and dreams wakes up one day burdened by the ghosts of the man he should be. A young woman with hopes and goals wakes up one day to realise that she lives in a gilded cage. Other times change is fast. Night to day. The best in us sleeps and neglects to wake the next morning and we are once again tip-toeing through a maze of triggers and pain.

Then the day fades and the night comes, and once again the best of us wakes. We sit around the table, we eat and we breathe. Then my father makes a joke and we laugh, my mother pours wine and my siblings smile.

Today, I made my favourite food. I sat at my table, and I brought out the best in myself.