Stories From Young African Poets: Natasha takes Us on a Long Ride With God and Clouds As Passengers too.

…I confess that I too would
die to reach for the clouds.
half abstraction.
clouds which exist in half abstraction.
you my dear, exist in half abstraction as…

Let us rewind straight back into when I first consciously wondered who made the creator who I was told made us.

shakes head in deep thoughts

I used to really enjoy reading through and playing games on the Encarta encyclopaedia so I came across planets through this, way before I learnt about them in school.

Planets

At about 7, I’d been busy trying to model them with plasticine and I still remember how my breath caught in my throat as I played with the plasticine which represented each planet. It felt unreal, almost woozy & borderline suffocating to try and think of who made the creator who I’d been told made the planets and us in extension.

I left my attempt at a solar system model and went out to the compound, sat on one of the spare tyres there and looked up at the sky, feeling my smallness within the confusion as I stared at the clouds.

"LET ME TOUCH THE CLOUDS I BEG YOU" By Natasha W. Muhanji


I know this is unreasonable but
my dear please let me touch,
let me touch the clouds
no matter how long it
takes to reach out to
them.
please.


the clouds are longing for
touch, yearning to
be held. do not let me
die.


it is only
by holding and by being
held that you exist, so do
not let the clouds die.


it is only by being
felt, that you are a living being.
otherwise you are
simply an apparition.


let me touch the clouds,
they ar’ lonely.

Wild thoughts in my head

That might have been my very first existential crisis.

DO YOU THINK THAT THE CLOUDS ARE LONELY by Natasha W. Muhanji– appeared on my personal blog

https://bibliophilicmistress.wordpress.com/2022/06/05/do-you-think-that-the-clouds-are-lonely/

we are insignificant.


this burdening
insignificance that we
harbor is
so, is so
overwhelming every
day asking , do you think that
the clouds are lonely?


we are so far away from
each other,
when we get close enough to
touch we are sent back
like Icarus and we
do it again, we always do it again
because the clouds are deathly beautiful.


if we cannot offer
comfort to the clouds then
what is our significance bas’d
upon?


I confess that I too would
die to reach for the clouds.
half abstraction.
clouds which exist in half abstraction.
you my dear, exist in half abstraction as
well because tell me now, who has
ever held the clouds in their bare hands and lived to tell the tale?

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Hannah Omokafe Dennis

Hannah Omokafe Dennis Is A 24-year-old Journalist, Voice-Over artist and UNFPA Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health Rights Advocate Living In Nigeria. She Currently Serves As A Community Manager In Konya Shamsrumi AndHas Some Of Her Written Works Published On Writer's Space Africa and audio stories on Genti media. She Enjoys Using Words And Her Voice To Tell Stories. She Tweets @Omokafe_forite.

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