My beloved land of looks

My beloved land of looks,

Aren’t we so boastful of our looks my beloved, in this land of looks?

Where external beauty is one skill set as if worthy being accounted for, one for the books?

Kelly Rowland and that guy in the Boys2Men band are our sister and distant cousin because of their features and demeanor?!

The beloved land, where a Lad’s capacity to create a wonderful home with offspring is based on his height?

Or a Belle’s capacity to lead is based on the impeccability of dark gums, docility, and width of her hips?

Oh, my beloved land of stares...

Where the gaze and stares are the sectors with the highest rate of employment...

You could be walking, you could be chewing food or sneezing in this season of changing weather, and still,

you’d be looked at...

One can try to dress so dully...

Walk slowly...

Speak softly…

And yet be looked and stared at…

One can dare to speak as their throat allows 

Dress as their personality shows 

And dance to the beat of their own drum 

And yet be stared at...

Are we so bored? Do we lack purpose and passion in our daily lives?

So unfazed with the joys of creating our joys and planning for our goals, that we are lost looking at those meandering the streets?

Formulating judgment and despising strangers for the way they wore and strapped their sandals and instead, in our very irrelevant and unsolicited opinions, tell ourselves that these strangers could have worn heels with that dress instead of laced Vans?

What a whole wow, I tell myself

Humanity, compatriots, how unimpressed I am with you yet so profoundly intrigued by your ways, ways of thinking, ways of behaving

Ways to give credibility to the loudest simply because they are amongst the few to be tweeting

Ways in which you admonish and coerce whoever dares to exist differently as a demon and how dare they choose a different path, a different way of being and manifesting?

Yegoko, uriya we yataye umurongo (they whisper to each other)

Sometimes we overly romanticize our existence 

Yasss Queen-ing and Go Off King-in 

When yet we are mere dust lost in the lust of feeling important by the simple and mere factor of holding onto the illusion of power 

A power that comes with being so and so’s child, having x amount of likes, or holding this and that position on a planet we don’t even belong to

Since we are mostly born to die and everything here is borrowed, including time here 

Why so pressed with pixels mate?!

I laugh at us sometimes

Sometimes I am also filled with despair at the regressing evolution of our consciousness 

We are so eager to polish these images and continuously praising gods we have built-in others 

Praying hard into preying on others’ lives

The beloved land, where reputation supersedes self-awareness and acceptance

Waking up early to choose a look that hopefully won’t upset the neighbor or have the MTN agent look at us for too long

Or should I say not have Mother ramble for too long and Father frown upon your resistance to conform and perform 

I wished we chose truth, standing in our truth as the way and the light

I wished we knew ourselves, therefore liberated to only answer to ourselves and made it a quest of life

Spend less time in lies that hide away our essence and erase our presence, or tuck away our personality or the little we have of it or the little left of it

Besides the persona, we display to the rest of the world

This world that is supposedly meant to embrace and accept what it isn't conscious of beholding itself...

But I also understand that survival has asked us to do so 

And to remain amongst strangers devoid of themselves and a sense of self -> society

Society, that we wouldn't want to be ostracized from...here we are coerced into self-betrayal 

Just to receive collective acceptance, as placement in society, in the group

Groupthinking our way into grieving the loss of individuality some kind of revival (we think)

But honey, you are no heir or queen or king of any kind, you are no savior for sins that aren’t yours or even royalty of anywhere, besides it’s all so trivial 

Cuncta vanitatem vanitas...hmmmm, nubundi tuzashonga disi (ibereho ma'!)

What are they likely to do besides staring and talking?!

Hmm...whose destiny? Whose life? If not yours, whose ruling?

The gods you shaped in your mind that dictate the shape of you when they have no clue what theirs is?

You have them choosing your destiny and tossing you around as per the latest trend, say of the day?

Because ignorance has fed you more than the nourishment provided in the clarity of day?

Need I remind you that we are all pots of clay?

And truly only one who has gained the mastery of themselves is as powerful as the potter?

May you find yourself beloved...May that light guide you through the evils of ignorance and pierce through unconsciousness..