Life in the usually bustling metropolis of London, is still as weird as it was a year ago — relative to our neighbours across the rest of the world. Closed shops and subdued high-streets. Masked strangers with eyes full of suspicion of the unmasked amongst them (just imagine that scenario for a second — circa 2018). Panic rising like mercury and hearts skipping beats at the sound of two consecutive coughs — not to mention a sneeze. A romance renaissance via virtual dating. When I rock up alone at the supermarket, it has become inevitable that I’ll spend some time…

It’s early February, 2021. On a winter morning full of nothing but grey sky — and the occasional rattle and hum from a train speeding by the back of my flat, memories flood my mind like disorganised archives. I sit in my front room flitting between staring out of my window and into the blank screen of my laptop. I’m trying to write a piece, offer a perception about love and how it intertwines with the human experience during times of challenge or ease. The world, our human conditions — are always subject to great change. Despite the invisible, deadly…

Fever is running high
because the world wants to commodify everything we’ve got.
Resilience is running low
when our backbones are used like a universal crutch.

As far as we have come —
disparity is still real,
representation is not equity, there is more than masks and bullet proof glass —
between the world and us.

Descendants of mitichondrial Eve —
deserve to be affirmed with actions that create ease,
with actions that stop us from waiting to exhale —
and just let us breathe.
Our energy is a currency.

The state of the world needs to manage its expectations…

Under the street lights on a warm moonless night in the spring, the dark wraps itself around us.

We begin to fade. Faster than teenage kicks, speeding cars and racing heartbeats, trains on the track and dance floors pounded by dancing feet. This city love is a mix-tape of memories and symphonies. Season after season, our ambivalence reigned. So many skeletons rattling keys in our closets, so many ghosts intent on driving us insane. Seems like forever since we’ve been lonely together, falling up and down, tethered by fast breaths and slow touch, taken over by unstoppable emotions. …

Last night,
just when I thought I was done struggling to make sense
of the state of the world and who we are,
pausing to contemplate the improbable — that I might be out of love.
I blew the dirt from my eyes and thought twice.

I called on sisters, queens, goddesses —
east and west; north and south;
with fire in their lungs and reckless urges in their guts.
They breathed life back into me — and bottled lightning was released.
I wasn’t quite out of love after all.
The Universe — was still willing to rise with me.

…

I saw my reflection in your deep brown eyes, the shadows mirrored my defiance as I chased down time. Snowflakes fell silently from a moonlit sky and the seasons blew past me like flashes of light.

Did you see your reflection in my deep brown eyes? Did the shadows remind you of a different time? If we rewrite the endings of dark days and blue nights — could we undo the hurt and rearrange our lives?

Going nowhere in deep woods, we’ve got trouble all around. …