Monday 13 February 2012

We're all somebody

We're all just somebody,
trying to find somebody.
A body within a body.
Creating something from within,
Something more to what's projected outside.
Something more than what they dictate you to be.
They place identities,
They make me, who they want me to be.
I can't let them identify me,
as the girl who took on the role,
as the girl who gave up her soul,
to pursue fallacious promises
publicized by the glamour of mannequins
Of woman with shapely figures,
and skin like silk,
drenched in chemical waste.
At the end of the day it's all about the creation,
of a face,
of a body,
of a being.
Send me a letter, noted with an "F"
For the day I can be myself,
and be free...
in a world morphed by society.

Written: Arlana Panduleni Shikongo 

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Is it possible to not know something but feel it?
Can man really make love, but not give it?
Who are we to take but not cherish?
To reap but not share it.
The paths that we've sown,
We'll walk alone.
For a selfish man, cannot feed his own
And when the hungry aren't fed, they'll move on.

A soul is a keeper,
For the life of the weaker;
In the dark it will seek her,
And triumph the sins that eat her.
For even when alone we're together
Like birds of a flock and a feather.
Regardless of the end, the time, the weather,
Empathy is for sundry complexions of hide and leather....

Written: Arlana Panduleni Shikongo

Opportunities are always at hand. -

Today, I started drama. Officially started Drama. Exciting isn't it?
........No.

The reasons I decided to start drama are, well, plenty.
As a child, I'd always loved morphing into a new character, taking on someone's life problems while letting mine brew in the darkness. I enjoyed galloping around, singing and dancing (like in musicals), and putting on a serious face for a few minutes when I'd lie to my mom about how my new Science teacher hit me. Adding tears always added that much more of an "ummph", but naturally, the task was challenging.

Today, when the drama teacher asked me why I decided to do drama, I choked. I literally choked. My throat dried out, and everything just disappeared. Naturally, I was able to blurt something out about acting, and morphing and blahdi blah blah blah. But, it was lacking substance; It was lacking me.... it was lacking MY emotion. I ended up saying that I love film, and I want to be a film actress. Which indeed is true. I LOVE FILM. I love watching a scene, seem natural and relate-able. I love hearing actors and actresses speak in a monotone voice because they get to blurt their lines into a microphone instead of having to yell and be conscious about sound projection in a 10 000 seat filled theater. I love the natural air to it... I adore it. I mean, the soft whimpers in The Black Swan, or the romantic tat-tels* of Noah and Allie in the Notebook. I mean, isn't it brilliant to be able to watch something and feel as though you're having a conversation with your friends. Isn't it lovely to know, that a whisper is a whisper and a shout is a shout? I say, it's marvelous.

Now don't get me wrong. I LOVE THEATER too. I think it's just exquisite. I love how those performers are able to get up on that stage, storm in as their characters, and get it all right in one shot. Heck, I applaud them. It take alot of courage and confidence to be able to step up in that intrepid manner. However, when it comes to personally taking on the task, I'll step back into my little shadow. I do not carry the confidence to perform infront of a crowd of people. Imagine, bright lights hitting you in the face, a bunch of lines to recite without any whatsoever type of assistance. Live. That's insanity. Okay, well.... Not insanity. Having experienced this once before, I reckon it's lovely. The feeling of knowing you're going and going without a glitch, the feeling of knowing that your presenting art, within yourself, viewed by hundreds, and most importantly, the reaction of the audience to your performance; the tears, the laughs, the applause. It's a rush indeed. Now picture a 158cm short girl, with short hair and dark eyes, bent over spine, head down.. barely carrying herself. - Do you see this potential in her? Barely. I'm not saying I have no confidence. Oh, I've got plenty but definitely not enough to stand infront of millions and make mistakes. I can, unfortunately, not deal with a bruised ego...or, not at this point in my life.


So, how do you think a girl like me can overcome a situation of the sort? Striving to make it on the big screen while intensely yearning for the adrenaline rush of the stage? Simple: Glee.
Acting on screen and on the stage has become possible. Like Lea Michele, roles of a theater actress in a soap or other type of novela has become common.. - Annie from 90210 as another example. Thus, if I desperately wanted to play the role of Daisy in 'The Great Gatsby' I could so easily write the script, produce the screenplay and have myself well on the way to broadway and the big screen in one shot!? Oh, hello Cabaret.

All in all, an artistic soul like myself will find means to pursue and fulfill all my life long dreams, regardless of how I go about. Whether it be producing my own theatrical scripts and having them roled on set with the camera, the lights, the "ACTIOOOON!!!", or publishing a novel of short stories and poems; I will make it to broadway, I will make it to the big screen, I will have a platform for my poetry, and I will publish my short stories and be credited with a novel... All in one go.

Sincerely,
Arlana PS

Footnotes:
*(Tat-tel: the soft whispering of lovers into the ears of another, accompanied with gentle nibbles on the ear)

Sunday 5 February 2012

Taking a better look...

Sitting here, I wonder. - "why do I only have two followers on this blog"?


I have 135 page views, and only two followers. Could this mean that my writing contains nothing substantial for my readers? Does it mean that the poetry, and the knowledge I sprout carries nothing for the people reading my blog?

While questioning this, I look back to where this started. As a child, I tried to keep a journal. Experiencing so much pain and confusion in life, and having no one to talk to made it important for me to have somewhere to write. However, writing felt like a vacancy. When I physically wrote everything down, I felt like it had to have a certain poise. I felt like it had to carry immense vocabulary, and intense meaning and it became too tiring. My journal and I had an on and off relationship at this point. That's when I started scrap booking. It was a means of keeping busy, and keeping my mind off alot of shit that bothered me. Also, it was so much easier to cut out an image of a woman crying, and knowing that it carried a whole other story within me. Soon after, I discovered computers, blogs and photoblogs When I discovered computers and typing, I moved to electronic entries. I created a file and named it "Diary Entries". This wasn't a very wise decision since I shared the same computer with my siblings. In my innocence and foolishness, I trusted them not to lurk into what was meant to be my sanctuary. Obviously they did. I only realised this when I discovered that my Diary would always come up in the 'recent documents', even if I hadn't opened it for weeks. That's when I stopped.

I'd stopped writing for a long time. I just didn't know where to put down what I felt. There was all this emotional turmoil inside me. It just lingered there, until one day it decided to escape through violent outbursts. Throwing things, hitting things, screaming out; all this in my own privacy, ofcourse. I couldn't let mom and dad see me lose my composure. I was the smart child. The level headed, over achiever. At 10 years old there was all this pressure to be perfect, and never disappoint my parents, and all this depression aswell. A problem had started bubbling under the surface. At this point, I learned to occupy myself to distract the thoughts, and cry at night when I was alone, in the darkness and silence of my own room, where no one would suspect a thing after a weary "Goodnight, I'm tired". I continued to scrapbook. Destroying one and the other in more violent outbursts, or for reasons such as "it isn't perfect". Perfect: at that point it meant, "Not what mommy or daddy would like", or, "not what my friends would consider cool". Don't get me wrong. My parents were great. They gave me everything, but everything couldn't make up for a real family dynamic. Everything can't make up for no family dinners, or family camping trips. They didn't realise that that was what I really wanted until I was about 14. Anyway, my sister had bought me a pink rose book. - She said, "do with it what you'd like". She bought my other sister the same one, but only in lilac. She used it for lyrics. So, I figured I'd use mine for scrapbooking. Surprisingly, I still have it. It started out with scrapbooking, and moved on to poetry... My talent and interest for poetry only came later; but eventually, I stopped. It wasn't good enough.

Years passed, I cried. Crying always brought me guilt. I'd sit there, and cry, and cry more because of the guilt. The guilt came from feeling under appreciative. I'd say to myself, "You sit here, with warm covers, food and everything you could possibly need, and you cry because home isn't what you want it to be, friends don't treat you like you'd like them to", and as I got older, "...and because you're lonely" became part of it all.
Even crying became hard, but when you're sad, there seems to be nothing beyond crying. I'd always feel better after a good session of crying. Sometimes, one session could keep me on a positive path for about a week. Maybe even 2. Thereafter, it all came crashing down, and depression swept in again.

Back to the point:
I knew there were millions of people out there who felt what I felt, and were just as confused as me; roaming the internet for answers to life. That's when I realized I could start a blog. Blog about my day, how I felt, and how I dealt with it. Post my poetry, and maybe have someone relate to it. That's when I started, "Timely Told Thoughts". - I was excited. Excited to share, and excited to mean something to someone far and distant, and perhaps help that girl, who like me, felt like jumping off a cliff, not jump. Maybe, I'd be lucky enough to get the boy who wanted to swallow a tub of drugs not swallow it, because I didn't. Maybe, the girl who pierced her skin for the thrill of the pain, would realise it wasn't such a bad thing after all. That was my mission... and I knew my mission was reaching it's aim when I realised that this page was actually getting views.. But I still asked myself, "only 2 followers"? Could it be that people are scared to accept that things are wrong, or do they feel like my writing is not deep enough? Do they feel like I only scratch the surface without cutting too deep? If that is so, they need to realise that for me, cutting to deep would hit a vain* (Note the spelling). A vain* that could lead me to spiral back into the dark burrow I'm attempting to escape. I need to stay on the surface to keep breathing, but when you analyse the surface deep enough, you'd realise that there's more to the surface than just that.

All in all, all my blogs are an escape. My journal is an escape. My poetry is an escape. I get to escape this whirlwind of a life, I get to escape the sadness, and I get to escape the depression. I get to dissolve the facade I put up in my everyday life. I get to be me...: I get to be Arlana, or Pandu. Or both at once sometimes. I get to be the person I can't show outside of these places: the journal, the poetry, the blogs. -
...therefore, even though I have only two followers, I actually need no more.. Regardless of how many people follow what I write here, I am certain I am saving one person. I'm saving myself from that edge, from those pills and from that cut; and by saving myself, I know I'm saving someone else too.

PS