Skitz Gemini

Just before I turned 15, in high school grade 10, someone pissed me off. 

I wasn't a really happy teenager, in fact  things sucked badly. One day, after my Saturday Math and Physics classes, I stumbled upon some interesting looking teenagers outside the city library on my way home. They looked all hip-hop. I had just started falling in love with hip hop.
Among these I spotted some people that I knew from primary school. A friend told me that inside the library, at the basement, there was a poetry session going on. I was thrilled. I was curious. So I asked the girl I was walking with, a friend at the time, if she wanted to come with. It was all good. We had a bit of time before curfew at 5pm. 


It was dark inside as we walked in. Only the stage lights were on. There was a tall, brown man standing at the back with long dreadlocks dressed in rasta colors with bohemian shorts and a scarf on his head. We were told to join the rest of the audience sitting on the floor. I found it strange but beautiful. It was all kumbaya-peaceful like. We sat towards the front. On the stage were two teenagers, a guy rapping out his lyrics as a girl sung a melody and then they would swop. It was mesmerizing for me, the beauty of their art. 

As they finished the tall dread-locked man at the back approached the stage and started rapping on his way up, all the way to the stage. I was so surprised! It was just majestic. I was wondering who all these wonderful people were and why I had never met them before. As he reached the foot of the raised floor he took his shoes and scarf off. It was sort of like a ritual as he laid his shoes neatly to the side and stepped on the raised floor, un-scarving his dreadlocks as if unwrapping his nakedness, ever so carefully and laying the scarf, folded at the corner of the stage next to the shoes. Under my breath I mumbled "Oookaaaaay, whatever makes you comfortable..."

To my surprise he, at that point exclaims mid-poem: " So, whats wrong with being comfortable?!" with so much feeling and passion that I was embarrassed I had said anything. Honestly I didn't know he could hear me and he carried on nonchalantly as if it was part of the poem . It could've been, but at that time I was so stunned that I wasn't listening anymore and kept wondering if that was part of the act or if he had actually heard me and took offence even though I wasn't offering any.  

The poetry continued and I was already immersed, having acquired comfort in this new zone. It felt like home. The people there were friendly and spoke to me like I'd been with them at those sessions all my life. It was easy to make friends. Before long though, my accomplice pointed at her watch and said that we would get into trouble if we didn't leave soon because it would get dark and we would run out of taxis. I told her to hang on a while, one more hour before the session ended. It was 4.30pm.

She wouldn't hear of it. 

I told her that our parents were the same, maybe mine even stricter than hers. I knew I would get into trouble. I was thinking in my head that for the first time in my life I didn't really care. I wasn't doing anything wrong by enjoying WORD. I told her that if we stay together, since our parents know each other, we could vouch for each other in telling the truth. Its not like we had decided to go drinking or do drugs or have sex in dodgy places like our parents were always insinuating we somehow would. Like some of our peers, however few and between and distanced from our daily lives, were doing. Surely truth counts for something?  

Despite my pleas, she left me there to decide for myself. I chose to stay. I have never regretted it. And then my old best friend from primary school pitched up out of nowhere! She recited. She was wonderful! An hour and a couple of new friends and excellent poetry later, I left for home. Got a taxi and got home 6.30pm on the dot. 

My dad was at the dining room table working on something as I walked into the door. He looked up and didn't say anything, the way he does when he is mad at me. In his head, I can imagine all the thing she had invented as to the reason his wicked daughter was home so late. Class ends at 1.30pm and she arrives 5 hours later.

Mom calls me into her room and tells me that they were worried about me. As I'm explaining where I had been she tells me that she received a phone-call from my "friends'"　parents. I sigh in relief thinking I'm exempt since obviously my friend had made sure they knew where I was. Only to find out that that wasn't quite the story...

My friends parents were very worried about their daughter but were glad to hear we were together at the poetry session. What they didn't understand is why I refused to leave when it was getting late at 4.30pm. My friend had had the sense to leave and tried to convince me that it was best this way but I had refused and tried to coerce her to stay, drag her into my defience. The disapproval of my character was blatant and discomforting, never mind the insinuations that were coated onto my insolence. I mean, how can they be sure I actually stayed at the poetry session, a whole hour more and got caught up on the frequent long queues of commuters heading home on a Saturday afternoon after a day of shopping in the city? How do they know for sure that 4.30 was interval time at the poetry session so people could get refreshments and a bit of air after sitting in a dark basement for two and a half hours? How do they know that 4.30 was the end of the session and I had gone with my old best friend to do...god forbid!
I remember thinking to myself that she would have done better not to even say I was with her that day, now that my reputation had been tainted by imaginary sins. I was mad. I got so oooooo mad!

My father gave me a hiding that day. 

I seldom get angry but that day my anger BLEEZED. 
In my room  I sat down with a notebook and a pen and just started jotting down all my thoughts. I was mad. At her! I had obviously taken the fall for both of our guilty pleasures. Guilty for loving word and pleasuring my ears. This sinful indulgence called art. And she was chaste. Chaste as a blooming daisy. 

So I wrote and wrote down all that I felt, expelling her from my system , lacerating our friendship there and then. When I finished crying, I had my first diss rhyme filling my page. Suffice to say that SKITZ GEMINI was born on that very day. 

A few weeks later I was to recite this to my emcee boys at school and back then I didn't even know what punch-lines were but, I was officially team. 

Skitz Gemini is the schizophrenic gemini that is me. She has a dual personality. On ordinary days she's really sweet but when really really pissed off, which doesn't happen often, she pops out of me and starts spitting venom. I have no idea why she needs to be really angry to do this though. And I was plenty angry as a teenager. There have been less than a handful of people able to make me angry enough to bring her out. Its usually women, too.

 Lately  I feel her wanting to show her face.

Zulu girls Can...

I am sure

I am very very sure 

Of the abilities of Zulu girls. 

Despite their background. 

Despite their upbringing. 

Regardless of their social limitations, 

Whatever their programming. 

Aside from their challenges. 

That they can: 

Travel anywhere they want in the world. 

Adapt. 

Learn. 

Get by with the language barrier. 

Make friends. 

Make interesting conversation with strangers. 

Touch a heart. 

Be someone's secret sexual fantasy. 

Inspire. 

Invoke anger. 

Invoke jealousy. 

Teach. 

Love. 

Trust. 

Abandon their hearts for something bigger than themselves. 

Tell stories. 

Make sacrifices that others would find surprising. 

Keep faith. 

Cry long and hard. 

Whine sometimes. 

Carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, with a weak but determined smile.

Carry their men to glory even when they are not aware they need to be carried. 

Protect their youth.

Fight for their families. 

Punish. 

I am well aware of the abilities of Zulu girls, that too are aware of themselves. That too hold, the power of self knowledge. 

 

Fire and Ocean

Whenever I look into her eyes I see fire.

She once told me that I was pacific

Calm, and calming like the sea. 

I've been drawn to her since the day we met. 

I've been going through my whole life thinking surely, 

surely there must be someone out there that understands...

Surely there exists more than just me. 

And there she was. 

Eyes sparkling, fierce and untamed, 

looking as if laughing at me- with me- at my silliness for not believing 

(as if saying, "Of course we exist!")

- staring right inside without a blink.

I'm holding her gaze, looking inside and she is smiling. 

Outside she giggles. The way only she can giggle.

Wild child, like the universe just threw her right there in front of me. 

We're friends now, hanging out sometimes. 

Busy bees the both of us but its OK. 

When we talk, its special.

We go out. We dance. We drink. 

I meet her plethora of friends. 

They become my friends.

She falls pregnant. 

I don't see her for a long time, but its OK. 

She has a beautiful baby girl. Saggitarius.

We rejoice. 

When I see her again its a happy accident.

She's on her way to a performance. 

I'm waiting for someone who isn't committed. 

So I follow her and get mesmerized again, 

capturing these moments on camera. 

I have to go. 

She walks me to the bus. 

We hold hands and walk silently together.

On the interweb I tell her just how I feel.

She say's she's been wondering what that look in my eye is. 

I know she can see.

Nothing changes.

Except maybe, we live in different cities now. 

We keep meeting briefly. 

I am no longer friends with her friends.

She is no longer friends with some of those friends.

We meet briefly again before I leave the country. 

I tell her I came only for her because my heart has already left. 

We embrace for a long long time. 

My boyfriend tells me she is the only one of my friends that he likes.

My boyfriends' often tell me too much.

And then I am gone. 

In my mind those wild eyes are imprinted. Spirited windows with the fire I have always wanted to have. I guess now I have it. In her. She is Gemini. I am Gemini. Like two parts that fused together form the air element- 

FIRE and OCEAN.