Bernie Mshana Bernie Mshana

Sister, girlfriend…

“Now b**** thank you for finally understanding that you are unwanted anywhere near us. I don’t think we appreciate opportunistic parasites like you who only come to people when they encounter mental illness like you are currently doing. You are nothing but a mentally ill b****. One that is also so heartless. I can’t believe you still find your way to try talk to my boyfriend when it’s you who hurt him. You have no shame you witch. I swear if I see a sign of your solution self around either my boyfriend or I, I swear…

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Bernie Mshana Bernie Mshana

Love letters

Love,

I am glad I met you when I met you; not a moment too soon or a moment too late.  The night when I swiped right for you, was the same night I had decided to give up on love. Then the notification came and I was surprised that you -tall dark and handsome you- were interested in my broken self.

It might have not been obvious to you at the time, but I was broken. I gathered the courage to ask for your number because heck, there...

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Bernie Mshana Bernie Mshana

Imagined love

Today I mourned for the death of our love again.

In tears I looked at myself in the mirror and my reflection reminded me that, what I missed was not you…because, it was never about you. What I truly missed is what we could have been.

With that thought I was reminded of what lives in me; the poetry, the love nonsense, the romance that I brought to life with my imagination and most of all the version of you that I crafted with my thought. How could I have not known this already? 

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Bernie Mshana Bernie Mshana

Mama Afrika

I live and breathe her.

I think of her before I sleep and when I wake up.

She is my dream and my reality.

She is woman, she is brave.

She is all I could ever ask for.

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Bernie Mshana Bernie Mshana

Once

We close and lock our doors from the inside to keep out the men we fear and keep in the ones we love.

From the inside, so that when the ones we love want to leave, they can simply open the door and walk out of love from us.

Inside so that we can open the doors and walk out of love from them or open the door so that we can let new ones walk into our love.

We can’t help it though if the men we let in or those who are already in our lives betray us.

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Bernie Mshana Bernie Mshana

Euthanasia

Time of death, 12:07 am. May her soul rest in peace!

He pulled the knife she had been using to chop up the sweet potatoes they were to have as a midnight snack and pierced it straight through her heart. Just like that, she fell dead on the floor and her last words were written in her blood.

“You owe my unborn daughter her last name. I may forgive you but she will forever haunt you.

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Bernie Mshana Bernie Mshana

Searching for him

The truth is, after our fight last night, I don’t know if I am blinded by love or empowered by it to see through the thick layer of “MAN” you seem to be putting up. You seem to have me convinced that you, despite the hurt marks you leave on my body every night, are the one who left that heart mark on my heart, because my heart can’t seem to leave you…it just loves you.

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Bernie Mshana Bernie Mshana

The new god

I dream of being rich and traveling the world to see beautiful landscapes and breathe fresh air.

A voice inside of me mocks me and says, “I hope technology would have figured out ways of stopping global warming by then, because as long as technology causes global warming, and climate change persists, there will be no fresh air for you to breathe and no landmark for you to see.”

I exorcise the ridiculous
thought! How dare I question the power of future technology? I repent and confess the god’s prayer:

Our Scientists, Who hail in labs

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Bernie Mshana Bernie Mshana

I am not a love poet

I am not a love poet but your kaleidoscope eyes had me listen to that song again. It goes like; “I met a strong, dark and handsome man and I’ve been busy making big plans. But no one needs to know right now. I’ll tell him some day, some way, somehow. But I am gonna keep it a secret for now.” It makes me wish I were a love poet.

See, I am really not a love poet but if I were…

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Bernie Mshana Bernie Mshana

Letter to an African child

Dear child,

Mungu made you from my fertile soil and I bore you as seed. Grow! My fertile soils support those of your kind. If baobab seeds grow into strong trees so shall you. You will be firm and you will be big, hard to ignore because your leaves in the fall will fall and because your branches will be long and your body wide, you shall leave a piece of you far and wide.

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Bernie Mshana Bernie Mshana

Bleeding

I am bleeding. Not the kind of bleed that symbolises endings and letting go of dead things within but the kind that symbolises murderous commentaries that killed souls, and beings, and dreams. Because with every unreturned ‘I love you,’ I hurt. They say words cut deep but I think silence cuts deeper especially when he is the one who makes love songs for you much deeper.

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