Truth in Another’s Mouth

I seem to be on a trend at the moment! I’ve been thinking about what truth is, what belongs to us and what truth belongs to others and what that all means.

I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to lie to yourself and how much it can shock your mind and body when someone speaks the truth you would rather not hear or do not yet have the courage to face.

It’s an ongoing conversation with myself but here are a few random scribbling from my musings today:

Sometimes Pictures Lie

Unfiltered #throwbackthursday. This photo comes up on my Facebook memories every year and it always takes me back because this day was such a complicated day. I was out with friends and outwardly was having an awesome day but I was so depressed during this time.

And this day internally was one of the lowest days I’d had in a long while. And I was distracted because I was out with people I loved and who loved me but for each year this comes up, I’ve always had such a visceral reaction to this photo because I remember how conflicted I felt on this day and I hated seeing it represented like this.

But it also reminds me that things do change and get better. And God is good. And getting help is great.

When I think about depression, one of the poems that comes to mind is this raw, powerful spoken word poem by Sabrina Benaim titled ‘Explaining My Depression to My Mother”

As a child of immigrant parents, one of the toughest things to bring up has been my struggle with depression and anxiety, both because it’s hard to own anyway and also because saying “I am depressed and need help” in a culture that does not cater to the importance of mental health is one of the hardest things to do.

Have a listen to this poem, I find it so comforting:

Explaining My Depression to My Mother ~ Sabrina Benaim

Speak Truth to Yourself

Speak truth to yourself

In whatever fashion you will

Whether loud, or angry

Or in slow measured tones

Tell yourself the things they no one else dares. Like a shrink to his delusional patient. Be patient and speak truth to yourself.

Speak to the inner man. Speak to the Child and the mother. Speak to the king and the lover. Speak until every lie that lies in the deep ocean of you has no room to maneuver, speak truth to yourself.

Unravel the inner workings of your own heart, hold yourself accountable for the weight of the words upon your own tongue, for the things buried deep in the fractures of your core

Speak truth to yourself

Speak all these things to yourself

Search for yourself like a mother

Like a mother for her missing child

Be every form of truth to yourself

Be love, be hope, be justice, be righteous – be a daily legacy

Be friend, be lover,

Be the man on the streets no one wants to stand beside…

Be okay with that.

Be your favourite book

Your last happy memory

Be chocolate covered doughnuts

Custard creams and apple pie… Be a fruit salad.

Grab a hold of the you that you have always been.

And speak truth to yourself.

Happy Father’s Day, Father

Happy Father’s Day, father,

though you are not here.

The celebration we could have had today

would have made you smile.

The presents — probably a tie and a book–

placed on the dining table next to the

card shouting “Best Dad in the World!”

You are not here to be celebrated

but I’m thinking of you

and loving you and saying

softly to the idea of you:

“Happy Father’s Day, father.”

Keeping My Hands to Myself

All I think about is how much I want you to survive.

When you were fourteen, I told you:

You can be anything you want to be, just don’t be a statistic

I told you: “We live on the wrong side of town and I know, they know

Your name not because they want to but because they feel they have to”,

I told you can feel as angry as you like but

Never show it on the streets”

We live 62 miles from London, 78.5 miles from

Birmingham; but when the anger exploded

We made you a prisoner in your own home

Cause it doesn’t matter how far away it might be,

Every siren is an emergency in our house.

When you were nineteen,

You found the right things to say

So I wouldn’t be afraid.

Now, I take it for granted that all your words

Are to be read into –

I listen but look at the margins

to see what you’re omitting.

There are things I will not tell you.

Like what it feels like to stand in Templars

Square and have nothing to say when

The old lady you’ve just spent ten minutes

Talking to turns to the waiter and

Says, ‘this coloured girl’s looking for a job,’

No one knows what to say. So we say nothing.

You’re 21. I’m worried your hair is too long,

You’ve never shaved your beard and the way

Your coat hangs on you says things you shouldn’t

Want to say. I tell you, ‘You should cut your hair.

If you look all wrong, you can get in trouble’

Trouble can mean so many things.

April, 2015: ‘Two men have been charged in connection with an incident of

grievous bodily harm in South Park. They were charged today with one count of possessing

a blade in public and one count of wounding with intent…’

We go for dinner, and talk about how funny they both were.

We talk about what we know, the version of their story that will never make the papers

Because No one else will talk about what they could have been.

This we do for every name we recognise in the paper,

For the ones we don’t

for every knife and gun,

We gather and remember, drive and remember, eat and remember

every name, every story, the ones we’ve heard on the streets

the ones we know personally,

We’re the keepers of tales, we swap them

back and forth so that they rest between us;

We deliberately remember the good,

Because we must.

Because this isn’t London.

This isn’t Birmingham.

The only things visible here are the dreaming spires,

conversations at bus stops about the weather,

history soaking into the skin of our hands

so much so that we dare not touch

the stones lest they crumble;

there’s so much history to preserve here…

I’m 25. Now I only tell you, “Please, try and be home by ten.

Don’t get into trouble.”

*Listen to the poem in full!*