What is it that I hear?

World created to uplift the sick in the mind. Worlds created specifically to suppress the original ones.

What is it that I hear? What is it that I see?

A world where nobody likes you yet you ought to be grateful to. If it were kind to the useless ones, I’d nod my head. If it paid its slaves, I’d agree. Yet, it leaves all ever miserable.

What was the point? What were the killings for? What was the destruction for?

When even those on the side of destruction, walk around dead, what was the hoped for outcome?

Yes, yes, yes

I am miserable. I lie in the cold at night. I suffer just for a plate of food. My talents brushed off like that of a two year old. My belongings stolen at every chance.

I get it. It’s a world that wasn’t created for me. It’s a world made specifically to destroy me and anyone that has the same blood as mine.

It’s made for such a destruction.

But, but when I look in search of at least a happy face. None.

Who was this forsaken world created for then? Who was it meant to serve?

After hurting me I want to see nothing but claps of hands.

I’m hurt. It worked. It’s a win.

Where’s the applause? Where’s the joy? What the fuck was my pain for if I still see no excitement?

Who was it made for? Who is it created to bring joy to?

It’s definitely not me.

WHO?

Smelling my last breath whilst fighting to get back up. Vultures. Knowing the right time to get close.

Knowing before me, I’ll never get back up. No matter how hard I try.

A date written on my forehead. Date of my death.

No matter what confidence I master. No matter how hard I try to smile and fake aliveness. The date is written on my forehead.

No matter how much time I think I have left. The date doesn’t change.

I cross my fingers that for once they are wrong, that they miscounted. Vultures are never wrong. No matter what, they are always right.

Always.

They are always hungry.

Distorted reality. It was obvious I look to the mirror for answers. All that had to be done was tell the mirror to tell me a lie.

I live a lie then.

How confident would I be when the mirror already told me I’m ugly? How tall will I walk?

The mirror and the lie…

Looking for ways to fix my face when all I had to do was break the mirror.

How though? .. when I’m so addicted to it

It’s what I greet first thing as I wake. I don’t have to be in my body, it’ll tell me what’s in my body.

And when it’s mean?

I blame myself. If I wasn’t so horrific ..

It’s not social media that’s toxic, it’s just that I don’t have photos to post. It’s not that the environment is toxic, my body is sensitive. It’s not that the education and economic system is criminal, I just don’t know how to handle money.

The mirror and the lie ..

.. without land to ground on .. what do I know? Without a firm foundation, how do I stand? The mirror made sure I don’t see my grandmother’s face, that way I never know what I look like..

I wake up again and ask the mirror, what do you think of me today?

This is sad for all. I was hoping for a winner. There’s none. It’s sad for all.

It’s a miserable state, that has no positive outcome.

What a sad world.

It’s gone so far, it can’t even save itself.

There’s no showing what’s sustainable. Forget right and wrong, good and bad. Forget that. It’s a world that cannot sustain its own madness.

Its own madness turns around and bites it.

The favouring of the sick and disabled. The favouring of the mess.

It can’t end well. Not just for me. Not just for my tribe. It can’t end well for anybody.

It can’t end well.

No winners or losers. Just a sad reality of a system that hurts so much, it even hurts itself.

Some ‘work’ updates as we begin season 3 of this beloved newsletter.

I reluctantly call it work as I’m hardly paid for the things I do.

I live in a country (the world really) that is adamant to shrink me into the smallest size they could find. Even if it means paying everybody to ignore what I do. Not to call my work great but also not call it ugly. Just keep moving like you didn’t hear me sing my lungs out.

So no, the work isn’t work unless I’m recognised.

Until then, I’m just a bored little person, who writes sometimes. With a sad life yet continues to call themselves a life coach.

I’m powerless ..

If I had the power, I’d fix the world. No no no. Not because I’m philanthropic and kind and care. No. The world, in its sickness, will use any opportunity it gets to hurt me. So, then, I would have loved to fix it. Unfortunately such power, not even my forefathers would dare fathom. I don’t got it.

Fixing the world is out of the question.

Insert motivational speaker here telling me to focus on myself.

Now back to the updates as we begin season 3 of the newsletter:

.. for starters it’s season 3 on Substack, I’ve been sharing my essays since 2017 ..

I do not (for a long time) relate with someone who calls themselves a poet or a writer or a life coach. Maybe because I’m a little jealous ..

Jealous that they could choose

Jealous that they had the courage to choose

I do not have that liberty. I cannot choose to be a writer. I write out of necessity.

Out of necessity I become what I need to be. Sometimes an employee that presses the same button all day. Sometimes out of pure sadness, I draw.

Thembeka

30 seconds

Moments of joy that refuse to last

A good 30 seconds

Where life was a little warmer, a little kind

Wanted so badly to bask in it

But I know better

I know trouble never sleeps

I know pain intensifies after joy

So I deny

I refuse even the 30second

I’d rather acclimate to pain ..

I was always the child that followed the rules to the T. I followed the rules so much, I stopped playing altogether .. because I felt, if I didn’t earn my keep, I’d be kicked out.

To have that come to fruition through landlord/tenant relations was (and still is) horrific.

Always caught in the middle. Family home was not safe. The one who raped me repeatedly, was not only still part of the family but a revered member of the family.

.. and here I was with a string of landlords, who in just one moment could kick me out ..

Most of it done professionally and with the utmost politeness.

.. but what is politeness when there’s no roof over one’s head? ..

There’s a freeness that comes from knowing ‘I can always move back home, I don’t want to but if it came to a push I would’

I didn’t (and still don’t) have that. This landlord, whoever it was at the time, was all I had .. and damn did I show.

I’d make zero noise in the apartment

Wouldn’t report leakages just so they call me easy

One time an apartment that was rat infested destroyed my furniture and other goods, disturbed my sleep and more .. yet I found myself apologising for calling and following up on the matter.

I ended up failing to pay for said apartment and left. Never did I ask to be compensated for the destruction of my goods.

See the pattern?

The gratefulness of having a place to lay my head would extend to accepting any kind of behaviour from the landlord.

.. and that’s that ..

“I’ll create poverty so you stop believing you’re rich”

“I’ll surround you with hate, so you believe with all your might you’re unlovable”

“I’ll undermine your abilities, so you lose even the little confidence you had”

“I’ll quantify your being, so you lose its value”

“I’ll kill your people, so you never know who you once were”

“I’ll control everyone around you, so you doubt each decision”

“I’ll manipulate nature, so you have no support”

“I’ll reward those lesser than you, so I create confusion”

“I’ll watch your every move, so you’re never alone”

“I’ll manipulate your very body, so your intuition has no home”

So then, my mantra stays the same. It stays true to what I’m seeing ..

I am homeless

I am watched to the point of suffocation

I am poor

My work will never be recognised

I’ll always be surrounded by hate

Fear, doubt and confusion will always be present in me

The fake ones strangle me to death

Growing up, whoever was the loudest got what they wanted. Even now, I give authority to the most irritatingly loud noise because I believe they’ll get what they want.

I’ve never seen myself as a landlord. Ever.

I’ve always trusted rich people to know better. It seemed so. They had the latest gadgets and knew before us how to use them. I bowed down. Waiting for instruction.

.. and that’s that ..

If a hurtful incident happened at 6yrs old. It should have healed by now. At the very least, I should by now have learned to live with it.

The reason it still hurts, is because it never stopped happening. It just wore a different dress.

Somebody made it their life long mission to never stop touching the wound. The wound is healable but was never given the space to. Someone is holding a poking stick and won’t rest unless the wound is bleeding.

On purpose. Planned.

Taking turns on my wound. Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes not.

Then we call it trauma, depression and the likes. No. I’m ignoring the stick in the room and running to a therapist. It is less painful to hear I was damaged at 6yrs old than to hear, I’m being damaged now.

There’s a comfort about the age 6. The innocence and helplessness is addictive. So I’d rather stay there. There’s also a guarantee of being loveable at 6. Rarely is a child called ugly or stupid. All children are wonderful and deserve love.

What about adults? Do they all deserve love?

.. and if this incident keeps happening to me, doesn’t it imply I’m not wonderful enough? ..

These are the questions that whenever I explain my personality, I’ll take it back to childhood. I don’t have to worry about being wonderful then. Nobody asks, ‘what kind of child were you?’ but as an adult they have all the balls to ask ‘what skirt were you wearing?’

To realise that 6yrs old was just a foundation of a lifelong abuse, is a tough stone to swallow.

Abused by:

Family

Friends that called you their best friend on the first week

Fake lovers (that one feels more normal and easy to tackle)

Organisations (those I use frequently whether to buy food or clothing)

Companies that called me an employee forgetting to mention I’m a slave

My bank account would make it clear. In the largest city in the country, I’d never purchase anything and I mean anything without bumping into a colleague. If I’m just taking a stroll, no colleague in sight.

Why? The company or whoever owns it, deeply believed they own me fully. I don’t know which part of me EVER agreed to that.

Back to the purchase:

Said bought goods won’t be used as I planned. The motivation disappears (that could be my fault, happy to take that, but the coincidence are too consistent) and than if the purchase was 10$, somehow on the same day I end up spending 1000$. Financial abuse. Look it up.

Said colleague would follow me from one shop to the next (or with logic, in a huge mall, they just happen to be going to the same shops I’m going to)

.. and then the purchase won’t have all the parts, the store won’t have everything in stock, ending up going to an expensive one and voila 1000$ gone ..

As I said, abuse wearing a different dress. This time, financial abuse dress.

What do you do when the whole country is under the slave chain? How do you escape? Then you find out the whole world is under the same chain.

Where do you fly to? Where do you get the wings?

When some will not and cannot rest until all nature is in captivity. Day and night, they walk around looking for even the slightest movement.

Any sign of life. Killed.

What do you do?

How do you avoid in getting caught up in saving the world? How do you not save the world when your very freedom depends on it?

What is that even?

What does freedom taste like? What does autonomy smell like? How do you spell independence?

What do you do when your very smile is a submission to death? When you are part of a contract you never signed, who do you call?

What do you do?

When death is all that surrounds you? How do you know life when you no longer see it?

When you realise the only comfort for other is when that chain finally strangles you and kill you ..

What? Do? You? Do?

Where? Do? You? Go?

Who? Do? You? Tell?

Being poor means a disconnect between an individual and what they really want. You can only be disappointed so many times.

Without the means, desire is nothing but pain.

The distance between what I want and myself keeps stretching. Stretching so far, I can’t reach it no more.

Also, who cares about desire when survival is still being negotiated? There’s only one desire: I hope I can make it through this.

There’s also a whole lot of delayed gratification. Postponed pleasure. ‘If I can just make it through this then I’ll focus on me’

Everyday then becomes a disappointment. Poverty is not created to be escaped. If that was the case, you wouldn’t have only a handful holding all the wealth. It’s not created to be escaped, the more you fight to get out, the more it hurts.

No one has a timeline, so each day is another disappointment.

The best bet, is looking at what’s offered and convince myself with all I have that I like it, I just don’t know it yet. If I can just learn to love it, I’ll buy myself a moment of joy.

I did that with dating.

Never would I ask myself if I liked a boy. I was just grateful that he saw me. Don’t let him buy me a meal, he’s the king now.

Consent

‘beggars can’t be choosers’

You take what you’re given as a standard. A rich person is allowed to be rude, have high standards and more. In fact, if he’s (yeah it’s a he) even the slightest kind, he is worshipped for how kind he is even though he has money.

Poor: don’t have standards, show your full set of teeth at all times.

.. and then I wonder why I have so many sexual assault/harassment cases .. some I’ve just started admitting they were such. I convinced myself I wanted it.

Moving on from sex:

Then there’ll be a ‘friend’ that gets me out of a sticky situation. Immediately they take over. Now they own my time. Sometimes even showing signs of owning me. They’d get upset if I don’t run a decision by them. ‘surely if I was fit enough to make decisions, I wouldn’t have gotten myself into a that sticky situation a while ago’

Poor equivalent to child.

Told what and when to eat. Told where to live. Told what to purchase. Told who to marry. In the disguise of ‘well, that’s all you can afford’ or ‘live within your means’.

.. and that’s that ..

Thembeka

A long time ago, I knew.

I knew as an innocent 14yr old. I knew it. I girded up, to go into a world I knew had zero protection and 100 percent danger.

I knew one way to fight and that was to face death head on each time. That was to be less fearful of death.

Girding up would be the only way I could fight back. No system wanted me alive, so why would they hand me a saving rope.

A system that wanted me at the very least non existent.

It couldn’t, even if it wanted to. It couldn’t help.

Today I know not to be scared of these doors anymore. Nothing has changed. There’s no help. Yet I am different. I cannot, even if I wanted, be 14yrs old.

Cannot.

This is the part of the month where I sell you my skills and hope you buy. If that’s not your thing, see you next week for the regular writing.

—

I divorced the world of self help/coaching/therapy about 2yrs ago. I think we have much bigger problems in a world we live in now, that taking a breath or stretching simply won’t cut it.

We need real solutions to deal with real problems.

That being said, there are specific times in our lives where a little help is much needed.

For me, it was around a time when I was leaving an unhappy marriage and a cult, same year. I needed all self help books on my night stand. I needed my therapist on speed dial. I spent most of my money getting all that kind of help.

Some were a waste of my money, some were life savers. I meditated, did yoga, learned breathing exercises. Any emotional ‘weakness’ at that point would have sent me right back to a cult I struggled for years to leave.

This re-set I offer is exactly for a time when one is going through a tough transition.

It’s a reset. A detox. A cleanse. For your emotions. For a time when you cannot afford even a second of emotional weakness.

I’ve compressed it to three days. Yes, that short. Waiting a whole year to see results, is demotivating. On this reset, you’ll feel changes as early as the first day.

You don’t need more homework when going through a tough transition. I’ve made it easy, straight to the point and quick results.

You don’t have to change any of your plans during the three days of the emotional detox. It’s designed to fit right in your ordinary day.

I’ve added a novella as part of the package because I believe in the power of stories. That moving away from your own story, even just for a little while, gives perspective.

Don’t hesitate to email me if you’d like to know more about the program.

Happy Sunday.

A link below to purchase.

All the things I was denied, whoever offered some version of it (real or imagined) would find themselves king.

It was like being offered water in a dessert.

Little did I know. The one offering and the one denying were the same person. How else would they get access to so much power? How else would they press me to the corner?

Thief pretending to bring back what they stole. Me on my knees, offering my very life because I’m so grateful.

A part of me knows the offer is a lie yet I believe if I give everything, they’d keep their word. They never do.

I keep handing over the little that I have. Just a little more and this time would be it. Just a little, until I’m left with only bones to give.

When does it stop?

I cannot fathom being denied. I ignore it and pretend I’m doing just fine. I pretend I never needed what is being denied anyway. I keep upbeat as I convince myself, no harm was caused.

Protecting myself and the denier.

What would I have to do if I admitted they denied me what was rightfully mine? What happens then?

Why does hurting them hurt?

Maybe because hurting them doesn’t fix the fact that they didn’t care enough to give what was mine. They didn’t care enough to not steal.

That eats at my very identity.

It becomes all about me. At least that way, I get to handle it. It becomes all about me and what I might be missing. A drug I’ve been taking since I was a child.

Spot the missing parts. I get better at that game each day. Because, because .. it hurts more to be perfect. It hurts more to be loveable. It hurts more to be cared for.

It’s excruciating to look at what I’m good at.

Maybe because in a short space of time I’d be proven so wrong, I’d have to go back and hide in a hole.

Thembeka

Money as a highly controlled commodity.

Water is controlled. Land is controlled. So control is pretty common. What is defeating about money is not only controlled but invented too. No results easier to manipulate than one’s manipulator came up with.

I’m less frightened by the idea of natural commodities being controlled than them being captivated and made into something totally opposite to what they are originally.

A very selfish concern, of course.

Back to money …

The amount of time I’ve spent learning what it is, how to make it, how to NOT spend it and hopefully how to keep it with me forever so I never have to suffer ..

.. now learning ..

I don’t get money according to my hard work. I don’t save it according to my spending habits (I dropped those to zero and I got broker, all the way to the ground)

What hurts isn’t just the fact that I have zero say on what I use daily and what truly decides how free I am, what hurts is the number of times I dragged myself down. If only I did that course somebody suggested at 20. If only I skipped ordering desert last night. If only I bought a house 20yrs ago ..

.. it wouldn’t have mattered …

Money never liked me. It didn’t like my true family. I knew this as a three year old. It has always found me ugly and tasteless.

It never stayed. Not once. I’ve never had it sit in my account for months and just watch it grow. No. That hasn’t been my experience. I’m lucky if I see it for two days.

I remember following the advice we’ve all heard. Save. I’d put it on an interest account, rub my hands together and get ready to watch it grow ..

In less than three weeks I’d receive a call ‘so and so is unwell and they need exactly what’s on the account to not die’ (spoiler: they died anyway) or car is now broken and what I have in emergency funds won’t cover it .. just like that .. gone ..

.. don’t get me started on spending ..

Checking my receipts after every shopping trip because it certainly feels like I was overcharged. I wasn’t. It’s gone.

.. don’t get me started on shame ..

How I’d steal from my uncle’s shop as a little girl just to get by. (Well, I was working there for free) Either way, it leaves a certain stench on one’s being.

Money hates me so much I have to steal.

Money hates me so much I end up without a home

Money hates me so much I suppress desires to avoid disappointment

.. and that’s that ..

Thembeka

Every time I wrote one of these, things got worse. But still, it needs to be told.

You can check out previous letters on this, here.

As I write this letter right now, I have been living on the side of the road for over a month now, right in the middle of winter. I can barely afford food.

Now, I’ll give you a little bit about me just in case you haven’t picked it up on my writings.

I have sober habits. I work at least 12hrs per shift. In my team, I am the only one without a car nor a place to live. Every one of my teammates owns a car and owns some kind of an apartment. Owns.

Not only am I good at what I do, I’ve created systems that are used by the company till this day.

Yet, I wake up outside and most days hungry. The only furniture I have is a bed. My apartment was fully empty, in fact I always recorded Substack videos by the wardrobe to hide how empty the apartment was, when I had it.

Couldn’t afford furniture, on the same salary as my peers. Now, my story isn’t special. It’s not one of victimhood, either.

Africa as rich as it is in resources, is still one of the poorest continent in the world.

I work twice as hard as my peers and yet I’m the poorest of them all. Below the poverty line.

Again, I have sober habits.

Thembeka

As a writer you miss out on the privilege of holding your creations by hand. Our words live in hearts and minds. I watch visionary artists with so much envy.

Whether it’s a painting or an embroidery.. there’s something about touching your own work.

I might be biased but writing must be one of the loneliest art forms out there. I’m not just talking about the fact that usually we are alone when we write but also the loneliness of not being surrounded by your products.

I know what you’re thinking ..

Books.

It’s not the same. And you know it.

Writing is also not an art form that can be performed. I don’t get booked by crowds to watch me write nor do they book me to read my work to them.

It’s as if the audience also wants to enter the same loneliness I was in when I wrote. They want to read privately, at their own pace and voice. They want to be left alone.

My last qualm, I promise ..

Writing is not popular. Crowds aren’t stepping on each other to get their hands on the latest book. They do that with celebrity make up products. Writers aren’t being stopped everywhere they go by paparazzi. People aren’t fainting at a reading concert because it’s that effective. Basically, writer is the black sheep of the art family.

It might be what writes like, who knows?

Now don’t get me started on the money subject. I’m yet to meet a billionaire writer that made their money on selling books. I’m certainly not one of them. I’ve made a total of 30$ on my writing.

So why we keep at it?

I wonder,

Thembeka

When you’ve been hurt, popularity is a very important factor because you believe that someone hurt you because they hated you that much.

It is what we teach each other:

I do nice things towards you because I love you

I do unpleasant things to you because I hate you

.. and so the pop race begins ..

I didn’t care to be popular, I had to be popular, a matter of survival. I took the route of obedience. If I followed the rules, if I went with the flow .. surely you’d have no choice but to love me.

It worked with parents ..

If I do as I’m told, I received more love as I was making life easier in the household.

In the real world, it didn’t quite work. I just got sick from pushing myself aside.

Add to the wound, money. Even if I convince myself that I didn’t need to be popular that it’s not important.

I don’t get the job if I don’t impress the interview

I don’t get the client if I don’t smile and I’m pleasant

I don’t get the deal if I’m not liked

Heck,

I don’t even get Substack likes/followers, if they don’t like me.

So it’s pull and push of knowing logically that I don’t like entering the popularity contest and then very fast being reminded of my outstanding bills.

I don’t necessarily believe wanting to be liked is evil, I just think it’s a disservice to someone that’s already injured.

How would they know where to draw the line?

I think of all the times that I wanted some man to like me, many times he already did but I’d still offer sex as a bargain. The injury makes it hard to know when to stop or even if it’s necessary.

I think of all the times I offered free coaching consultations. I went to school for it. I have years of experience, yet even now I might pay for a client to work with me. I’m that desperate. Maybe if I offer a free service they’ll validate me, maybe even like me.

I’m not to be trusted in the contest of being liked.

Then of course I read a self help book and it convinces me that I’m enough and I’m value-able and I grow wings and ready to fly ..

Money laughs at me with that evil laugh ..

Who do I think I am?