Author: Mpho Mathaba

I just want to write something that will not be forgotten when I die... ...I go with warning sirens, be careful!
Posted in All

Diary of a Whimsy Kid

Posted on by Mpho Mathaba

I am almost halfway through the age 21 and in true Mpho style, I am about to take you through 21 random thoughts in my mind, or maybe not 21 exactly.

It is quite strange that I spent all my life looking forward to this age, but when my birthday finally arrived, I was suddenly not ready to let go of the notion that I am on my other round of sixteen.

Anyway, into the headspace of a forever 21 girl:

  1. Showing up becomes an extremely important accomplishment when you know how life gets when you do not, but it also does not feel quite enough at the same time.
  2. It is very easy to feel left behind when you measure yourself against your own set timeline and get a negative score. Sometimes, the competition is the ideal self you had envisioned, not anyone else, and that is a difficult problem to overcome. It is very important that you do.
  3. I used to think I consumed a lot of coffee, and now I consume a lot of coffee and celebrate not remembering the last time I drank coke.
  4. Sometimes, I wish they could put politicians as objects in a rage room.
  5. I have watched such green flag romance films since last November, and it really sucks a little when their delulu wears off and I stop thinking about how I should not die before I experience a lovely lovey dovey love story. I have developed a very contradictory pro-romance anti-romance-for-me syndrome, but not really. Also, it annoys me when people assume that I am not a lover of love because of that. I am love’s biggest lover, and that is probably one spark that keeps the poetry in me burning. Anyway, I am very happy that the film industry is slowly starting to not push the agenda of toxicity in both romantic and platonic relationships.
  6. I am actively working on listening more and speaking less, after years of believing I was a great listener only to realise that, well, not really. I found my voice one day and have since lacked the balance between attentive silence and nonstop talking. I either talk too much or not at all, and I am a terrible listener when I wear the former, which equates to bad conversationalist and ultimately bad friend.
  7. Trying to be a villager after spending a very long season being inactive in your village is a very huge gap to fill and in other aspects, it is never filled.
  8. I value being able to easily walk up to my floor when the elevator is down more than pretty elevated views now. Am I getting old?
  9. I have been trying to unlearn the tendency to use all the campus routes with lifts over walking up the stairs, but it’s become reflexive. For this reason and many others, my fitness goals are starting to seem like a joke.
  10. Eating is still not something I am keen to do and honestly, I can write a whole essay about my aversion to the eating process.
  11. Every three days, I am reminded of my need to own a camera.
  12. I have done quite a lot of minor stupid things this lifetime, and they continue to haunt me in a major way.
  13. I am unable to envision or look forward to the distant future anymore.
  14. I lost lots of my pictures and videos recently, and it has since kept driving me mad. I do not trust any form of storage now. I spend my days trying to draw up multiple forms to keep my archive but end up spiralling over thoughts of what could go wrong with each one of them. An alternative needs an alternative.
  15. I think the degree I am pursuing is really interesting, but I am not sure how to tailor it to be my kind of interesting because I have no idea what my kind of interesting is.
  16. I want to do everything I wish to do all at once and I live with the constant frustration of never being able to do. I do not need an intersection of everything; I need a realistic union.
  17. I have spent this entire year thinking excessively but lacking the ability to articulate or structure those thoughts.
  18. The pain of a friendship breakup is still one of the cruelest feelings life can ever put you through, especially when you would have never in a million years seen it coming. The glitch in your mind and the extra caution that comes with it too.
  19. My mother has kept me alive in more ways than one, and I am planning on buying the entire universe for her, so I need everyone to start packing up.
  20. Faith is a highly complex system, and one can never sustain it on their own and I have absolutely no idea how I would survive without mine.
  21. I do not have a wish list but if I did, prayers would be on number 1 and then repeated throughout the list.
  22. It is very easy to feel ungrateful when you are sad or whatever.
  23. I have said “yoh” more times than I have said anything else this year because my flabber keeps moving beyond gasted.
  24. 21 years later and I still overanalyse every single human and non-human interaction of my life and avoid as many as possible so that I do not have more to analyse. Welp!!!
  25. I went to the theatre and got my first big screen experience (never been to a cinema or theatre before, yes). I really loved it. It also opened thoughts about why experiences and memories matter, I have no idea why they do.
  26. I rarely use the phrase “pisses me off” but the tendency of people to tell you they have something and not tell you immediately will never not piss me off. As a person, you always have the option to not say anything until you are ready to talk. This does not apply to situations like “I am not okay, but I am not ready to talk about it yet” and alike.
  27. We talk about how the moments and non-material experiences and all that is what life is truly about, but we make the memories, meet the people, love the people, colour the life, feel good and then what? Does it change something about how we feel when we die or where we end up or what our life amounts to?
  28. I am finally learning how to lean on myself (besides leaning on God) and I am glad, but it is also the loneliest and most anxious time of my life and there is nothing I like about it. I am out here facing the anxiety of going out to wherever by myself and being a good friend to myself before expecting others to. Also, every year, I realise how hard friendship is despite how much I love the concept of it all. What a terrifying thing!
  29. I am learning how to accept compliments even if I do not believe them. A friend had to teach me this, the first part of it anyway.
  30. I desperately wish to experience a colourful life, however that might look like. To please my whimsy. To dance in the rain. To run and laugh into the night. To sing in front of the mirror. To not hold myself from loving explosively (I know my less usually seems like too much to some, but I always wish I could be less afraid to go all in with my loved ones). To bake a lot and mess up cooking recipes and wash the food down with apple juice. To knit and crotchet and finally learn to tailor my own clothes. To twirl as much as I want. To know how to restfully rest. To not chase time. Some days, I am leaning towards that, and on some, very far from it.
  31. I came to the realisation that I do not know how to get over stuff – things, feelings, places, people. I know how to let go of but not how to get over that. Sometimes I feel like it is unfair that I have to detach from most things, and other times, I need to get it all out of my system. I do not have an archive, I am the archive and this specific museum does not know how to let the old pieces go as it accommodates the new. It hoards them all.
  32. I do not trust my mind, and in turn, myself. You should not either.
  33. What to do?

21 plus 12 points I will later cringe over sharing but will not be deleting.

Bye, my lovelies!

.Mpho

Posted in All

“Ke ngoana.”

Posted on by Mpho Mathaba

It was many many years ago. He was so young. She was so young. He did not deserve to die that early and she did not deserve to lose him so quickly – so suddenly. But she was a kid. She had to be fine. Surely, she could not have felt the blow.

She was the first to find him. She was also the last he spoke to, the last he was with, the last he saw. She was the one who had to run for help even though it was too late. She ran. She did not even like running. It did not say much though, she was a kid.

She would see the image of the one she adored wrapped in a pink sheet and the memory of his brown face fading in and out of the pink for the rest of her life but that’s okay because she was just a kid.

She watched, detached and unsure what the right shape of grief was supposed to look like as everyone around her wailed and wept and that was okay, she was just a kid, she probably understood nothing of it. It was definitely not because she was not sure she deserved to grieve or afraid of how it would be received. Kids have no right causing unnecessary drama when everything is already hectic, do they?

Everything happened so quickly that she would fail to even make sense of it even in her grown days but that was okay. She was a kid.

She was shuttled through the days that followed the way children are shuttled through things that adults deem too large for them – gently redirected, kept on the periphery, handed food and told to go play, or not, she does not really remember. She does remember though, that there was no basket holding her in and rocking her back to steadiness. Nobody asked whether her head was on fire, or her chest moved between feeling like a gaping hole and that it caved in when she was sleeping. Why would they? She was a kid. She was probably fine. She would soon forget, the way kids do, merciful and quick. Nobody knew that she was not forgetting. That she was storing. That somewhere behind her small eyes she was carefully folding everything – the pink sheet, the running, the too-lateness of it all – tucking it in a place she would constantly stumble upon as she searched for memories of him.

The memory of it is not quite clear but the burial was probably on a hot sunny Saturday. She bathed early, got dressed decently. It did not matter to anyone if she showed up for the service or not, she was a kid. So she did not, she kept herself busy, a busybody really, moving from one unoccupied person to the next, looking for company, looking for anything. He was her company. He was her anything and everything. She was just a kid. Kids do not necessarily need to say goodbye, do they? The whole weight of the tent with the green mat and all those people and a coffin that apparently held him did sink but not really because she was a kid. What could she have possibly known? What could she have understood? She stood at the edge of it all, small and unaccounted for, watching the adults move through their grief like they had been given a script she had not received.

During the service, her main goal was to find a companion to take her to the spaza for snacks because she was just a kid, clueless, not because she needed to get somewhere far from it, even only for a little while. Not because the coffin was too real and the green mat was too final and she had not yet been given the words for any of what was sitting in her chest. She was a kid. She was fine. The script had decided.

And then life continued, the way life does, indifferently. People packed up their grief and carried it home. The tent came down. The green mat disappeared. And her? She just kept going, because that is what you do when you are a kid and everyone has already decided you are okay. You become okay. Too okay, in fact. She went to school. She played. She laughed at the right moments and was quiet at the right moments and nobody looked at her too carefully, possibly because they were too afraid to. She was a kid; kids are elastic and kids are good at moving the only way they know how – onward and forward – and so she did too because she had not yet learned that she was allowed to stop. Here and there, she would slip in a story about the boy she loved, in conversations that were too trivial to dwell on.

She is just a kid. This is what everyone decides, always. Children are resilient. Children bounce back somehow. Children do not even understand much of what is happening. That is not anyone’s fault per se.

The adults around her were also beyond shattered and they did the best they could to move through the fog of that loss. They did the only thing they knew how and they did it well – keep the child fed, keep the child distracted, keep the child away from the heaviness of it all. Shield the child. They loved her, they probably thought of her, but they simply were never taught that love, in that moment, also needed to look like spoken consideration.

*adds epiphany by Taylor Swift

She is not a kid anymore.

She is not sure when it happened – the crossover. She knows only that at some point, the thing she had folded and walked away from began to take up more space than she had left for it. It had been patient, but its waiting was the kind unfelt grief can wait; no urgency, no noise, and no intention of leaving.

She thinks about him now in a way she did not allow herself to then. She thinks about the fact that he was her best friend even before she understood the concept of friendship. Her person. The love of her life, and now, the loss of her life. A real loss, a counted loss, a loss that deserves a name and a place and someone to sit with you in it.

She thinks about the running. running as fast as she could but never as fast as she wished. Running with the hope that would soon be crushed as though she had no right to it being otherwise. Running away from the possibility of the guilt that would eat her alive if he were not to make it. Running with the knowledge that everything could go wrong but hoping it does not. Everything did go wrong.

She thinks about the pink sheet they both used to sleep on. How he used to tease their sitter for mispronouncing it as he helped her make the bed. She tries to find if there was any sign in those moments, a communication she missed because there is no way he could have left without telling her, without her. He used to tell her everything and he most definitely wanted to go everywhere with her.

She thinks about how they made sure they stood her far away from him and how for the first time, the separation truly felt final, because it was. Of the words she swallowed as they placed him in the bakkie of a police van and drove off when all she wanted to do was scream and beg for them to not take him away from her.

She is not a kid anymore. And she is learning, at last, to give the one she was permission to feel.

It is true. She was just a child. E ne e le ngoana. She did not know. She did not fully comprehend, but she does wish someone, anyone, would have walked with her until it all made sense to her.

Posted in All

The Return of The Sun

Posted on by Mpho Mathaba

Hello, hey, hi! I come back.

I know, I know. I tend to be very good at returns when I never even said goodbye to begin with. I apologise. I can assure you of one thing though: writing is the one thing I always come back to.

Those few previous sentences took so much and so long to write and that is exactly why I have been away. Our relationship is a contradiction, writing and I… …open honesty and I. That is also my relationship with life as a whole.

The plan was to write a whole thing about where I have been and how I have been, sort of, but I do not know how to that.

“I don’t know.”

I use this phrase quite a lot lately. I sit in different sessions with different people who are trying to keep me alive and well-functioning week in and out and I think I expect them to help me, but everything they ask about, I tell them that I do not know. I talk to my friends about just anything and I keep saying “ha ke tsebe”. I do not know what how I feel. I do not know what I want. I do not know what happened. I do not know why it happened I do not know what I am hoping for. I do not know why I did it. I do not know they did it. I do not know why I stay. I do not know why I leave. I do not know why I write. I do not know why I stopped or could not. I do not know why I sleep, eat, breathe, blink… I just do not know. I do not know whether I really do not know the story or I just do not know how to articulate it well.

I do not think I know how to speak anymore, not really, not exactly. I do talk quite a lot though, a yapper they say, but never when I have actual control over it and I am the one steering the wheel.

This week, I made a voice note to respond to a friend of mine and it was more or less me coming to a greater realisation that I do not know how to structure my thoughts and express them anymore. It hurt me.

Gosh, writing this feels like a torturous experiment. It’s really hard. I am not expecting you to read even further because this is just me jotting down my thoughts as they come and lately, my thoughts have absolutely zero direction when I need them to.

I had a terrible sleep last night. The bad dreams refuse to go away; I guess night monsters exist lol. That did not deter me though. I woke up and made a proper breakfast while listening to music. I felt calm and I was hoping that the slow morning would regulate my nervous system. Did it work? I mean, I am crying as I once again force myself to write because I have been having this gaping hole because I had not been writing for a while. I do not know how I feel.

I need to go and study after this. Studying…what a concept! I shall not expand further on this but yoh!

This is really a whole bunch of nothing but I’m just going to keep on writing.

I crash out on my WhatsApp status a lot. It feels so humiliating for me afterwards, but I always somehow go back and do it. My existence in general feels like a humiliation ritual. Is this an insulting thought to the God who came up with life in general and created me to be a part of it? I have been having such a hard time with the guilt that comes with how my mind operates while also trying to stay true to my faith. Anyway, this feels no different from those WhatsApp crash outs. I am venting on the internet, yikes! I just want to keep a digital diary so that one day I may be understood, especially by me, and I am honestly trying by all means to not be forgotten while also trying to erase my existence at the same time.

How do you handle living? Not the challenges and all, just the concept of life and you living in general…

Hello, I come back!

And I hope no one reads this, at least not yet.

.Mpho

Posted in All

“Where does the girl who has been everywhere go now?”

Posted on by Mpho Mathaba

I recently watched the movie People We Meet On Vacation. That is where the quote in today’s title comes from. Just like I usually do with fancy words put together like that, I believed that I could relate. I do not. I am a girl, yes, but I definitely have not been everywhere. Somehow though, just as I do with almost everything, I had already jumped into those shoes and dug the depth of that question’s reality deep into my skin. Being an empath might just be an illness.

In 2019, during one of my life’s greatest peaks and season of incredible achievements, also brewed (because I believe it began far back) the ‘coming out’ of my greatest turmoil. I had won a national writing competition earlier in the year, fancy wins if you ask. With the wins came interactions I thought to be meaningful, and they were, just add some vicarious trauma to the meaning as well. Like I said, living in your head and resting in a field of thoughts and emotions, yours and those unintentionally borrowed is a life whose chaos nobody prepares you for and one whose reality you cannot outrun by simply romanticising or forcing yourself to focus solely at the positives. Feeling is a lonely place to be.

This piece is not about travel, more about emotional mileage rather (and mileage runs out or something right? Don’t know much about cars and stuff).

When we say ‘everywhere’, we usually mean places with coordinates. Something on the map. Cities. Airports. Photographs because if it’s not in print, it probably never happened. I think I have been everywhere in a different way. Through other people’s grief, through borrowed dreams, through the heavy pause after conversations that changed me without asking permission (and really, you wouldn’t think to ask to permanently stay in a place you don’t even intend to land).

I have been everywhere that feeling can take you when you do not know how to close the door.

Back then, in beautiful tragic 2019, it felt like my life was expanding faster than my body could hold it. Achievement piled on achievement, and with it came proximity. Proximity to stories, to pain, to realities I did not yet have the language or boundaries to survive, despite strong belief that I did. I was praised for being ‘deep’ ‘insightful’ ‘wise beyond my years’. Nothing new really. Just that nobody warned me that depth can flood.

What they do not tell you about being the beloved caring sweet empath is that you do not just feel more, you feel earlier. You arrive at questions before you are equipped with answers. You stand at emotional crossroads long before your peers know there is a journey there at all. And then one day you wake up tired, not from going nowhere but from being everywhere at once.

I guess those words in the title do resonate with me after, or maybe I found a way to relate, just like I always do.

Being an empath requires a visa, because the visa-free travel has no limitations as to where you may go and how far you may reach. You just hop from flight to flight with limitless destinations because wherever the wind blows you, you are ready to go. Nothing prepares you for the culture shock or the language barriers or the foreign feeling of when it all hits you. And sometimes, when you are in destination number lost-count, basking in the sun, enjoying the wash of the waves and the smell of the sea, you only realise way too late that the UV’s been frying you (because when you move without plan, you sometimes forget your sunscreen).

If I had a passport stamped for every place my psych has taken me, it would have long overflowed with stamps from places of which some I cannot name. I’ve gotten the tans, but also the burns. Felt the breeze but also been swept wildly by the gale. I have been a snow angel, only to later get stuck in an avalanche. Empathy is dangerous territory that make it hard to tread carefully.

Back to square one. I wrote this because I was once again in my feelings because just like Poppy in the movie…

I guess I am her too. I am the girl who has been everywhere. Who is always on vacation, trying out a brand-new emotion and toying with exotic thoughts. I am the girl who has learned a lot but never how to stay still without absorbing the room.

I do not know where she goes now. I only know that she is tired of mistaking endurance for purpose.

.The Sun

Posted in All

JESUS: that’s the chat

Posted on by Mpho Mathaba

[4] The word of the Lord came to me, saying, [5] “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” [6] “Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.” [7] But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. [8] Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord. [9] Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. [10] See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.


[4] Lentswe la Jehova la tla ho nna, la re: [5] Ke o tsebile ke eso ho o bope mpeng ya mmao; o eso ho tswe popelong, ke o kgethile, mme ke o beile moporofeta wa ditjhaba. [6] Yaba ke re: Oho Morena Jehova, bona, ha ke tsebe ho bua, hobane ke sa le ngwana. [7] Jehova a re ho nna: O se ke wa re: Ke sa le ngwana, o mpe o ye ho bohle bao ke tla o romela ho bona, o bolele tsohle tseo ke tla o laela tsona. [8] O se ke wa ba tshaba, hobane ke na le wena ho o namolela, ho bolela Jehova. [9] Yaba Jehova o otlolla letsoho la hae, a ama molomo wa ka; mme Jehova a re ho nna: Bona, ke bea mantswe a ka molomong wa hao. [10] Shadima, tsatsing lona lena ke o laeletsa ditjhaba le mebuso ho epolla le ho qhaqha, ho senya le ho ripitla, ho haha le ho hloma.

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Bana beso ba ratehang,
before you were loud,
before you were lost,
before you were impressive or invisible
you were known.


Before your bones learned how to run from purpose,
before your mouth learned how to say “later,”
before you ever hid behind ambition or fear,
a voice spoke your name:
“Before I formed you in your mother’s womb, I knew you.”
Not when you got it right.
Not when you were useful.
Before.

Now I am about to tell you a story which is not necessarily mine but may be, which is not necessarily yours, but may be. It begins with a voice that may be all too familiar or a portion of our distant subconscious.

The voice said to me:
“There you are.
I see you.
Curled tight around your hurt like it’s the last thing you own.
That weight you’re carrying…I know its name.
It’s the name you called yourself in the dark.
“Failure.” “Broken.” “Unworthy.” “Dirty.”

You think if you hold it all close, you can control the ache.
But the weight isn’t yours to carry.
It never was.

I’m here.
And I’m not coming to condemn you. Or to point out all the shattered pieces.
I’m here because I heard the sound of your heart breaking from heaven.
And it wrecked Me.

I’m kneeling now. Right in front of you.
My eyes…they’re not what you expected, are they?
There’s no anger in them. Only sorrow. Only love.
There’s a burning fire that warms, not scalds.
A love so fierce it feels like it might unmoor you.


I see your hands. I see the dirt.
And I’m reaching for them.
Let Me.

I am not looking at the stains.
I am not painting the blame.
I am tracing the lines on your palms.
The ones I wrote there before you took your first breath.
I am remembering My masterpiece.

Now, I am touching the weight.
The one you’ve been carrying for so long.
The bondage and the chains.
My fingers are on the knot you could never loosen.

I am taking it.
You have to let Me have it.
It’s not yours. It was always Mine to carry all along.
That’s what the cross was for.
Let… it… go.

Here I am, standing by you.
And I am not leaving. I am waiting.
I am asking you to stand with Me.
To stand in the truth of who you are,
who I say you are,
a King and a Priest.

I am not done.

I want to offer you new clothes.Robes of righteousness. Garments of praise.
They are woven with grace and threaded with light.
Take off the old. It served its purpose. It brought you here.
But you don’t need it for the road ahead.

Look at you.
The old is gone.
Behold, I am doing a new thing.
Now it springs up
Do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

This is the unmaking that leads to becoming.
This is the surrender that leads to victory.
This is the death that leads to life.
But freedom isn’t just about what you receive, it’s also about what you release.


There’s one more thing.
I’ve carried your chains away…but the memory of them still lingers.
And for you to walk light, truly light,
we must put the old you to rest.”

Now, where did the voice come from and how did I end up there?


The invitation arrived with no return address.
Just a time, a place, and my name.
And when I got there, the chapel was empty. Just myself, plus one casket at the front, closed.
And Him standing beside it, not in priestly robes, but in a simple shirt, sleeves rolled
up like a gardener about to get to work.
‘I’m glad you came,’ He said, His voice the sound of quiet earth after rain.
‘It’s time.’

I didn’t want to look. I knew.
I knew whose name was etched on the plaque;
the name I answered to for so long,
the ‘Me’ that was built on a foundation of everyone else’s applause,
the ‘Me’ that was a fortress of achievements designed to hide the hollow rooms inside,
the ‘Me’ that was so desperate to be loved, it forgot how to obey.


‘We are here today,’ He began, ‘to lay to rest a beloved creation.
A self that worked so very hard.
That carried weights it was never meant to carry.
That learned to limp, rather than ask to be carried.’

I wanted to protest. To run up and pry the casket open.
That’s me in there! My ambition! My reputation! My carefully crafted image!
But His hand on my shoulder was a gentle anchor.
‘Let it go,’ He whispered, not a command, but an invitation to freedom.
‘The things you clutch so tight to your chest are the very things that are drowning you.
That version of you? It had to die. Because I love the real you too much to let the
imitation live.’

He walked me to the casket and placed my hand on the cool, polished wood.

‘Thank you,’ I whispered to the casket, tears finally breaking free.
‘Thank you for trying to protect me.
Thank you for getting me this far.
But your work is done.’
And in that moment, I felt it.
Not a loss, but a release.
A death, yes, but like a seed falling to the ground.

The old me was buried.

He handed me a new garment. It felt like light. It felt like breath. Not just bright. It felt like Him.


‘Put this on,’ He said. ‘This is the new self. The true self.
The one I fashioned before the world ever told you who you should be.
The one that is hidden with Christ in God.’

I am not who I was.
I attended my own funeral and found my resurrection.
I had to die to that stranger to finally meet the believer He always knew I was, the one He already died to save.

I share this with you because I once had a casket of my own to face, and I probably still have more to bury. I share this with you because there are many like me and many I pray do not end up like me. I share this because I need you to Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

We often follow a “live fast die young” rule while trying to walk in the spirit of a God who wishes for us to enjoy a long life.

We paint our lives red,
bottles clinking,
bodies touching,
memories blurred enough to forget who you were becoming.
As if youth is a fire that must burn recklessly or it will go out.
As if joy only lives in loud rooms, in bodies pressed too close, in nights we barely remember but swear we’ll never forget.
As if impulsive pleasure is proof of life. What is life?

We are very good at building things God never asked for.
Very good at running fast
in directions He never sent us.
And somewhere along the way,
we stopped asking what we were assigned
and started chasing what impressed.
We baptised ambition
and called it purpose.
We mistook movement for obedience.
We stayed busy enough to feel faithful,
but quiet enough to avoid direction.
We ran after our own plans
until they began to consume us,
until the thing we were supposed to steward
started owning us instead.


The Bible never warned us against ambition,
it warned us against replacing God with it.
Because there is a difference
between building something
and building what you were sent to build.
There are instructions written over our lives,
not just dreams.
And when we delay obedience to those assignments,
we don’t just pause God’s plan,
we disobey Him.


I came across someone saying that
procrastination is the arrogant assumption
that God owes you another chance
to do what He already gave you time to do.
And that sits heavy,
because delay feels harmless
until it becomes a habit.
Because our God is graceful but also wrathful.


We tell ourselves, “I’m not doing anything wrong.”
but not doing something wrong
doesn’t mean you’re doing something right.
Neutrality is not faithfulness.
Comfort is not calling.
Waiting without obedience
is just fear in slow motion.


Scripture doesn’t call us to be impressive,
it calls us to be obedient.
To seek first what He has already spoken.
To trust that His assignment will sustain us better than our ambition ever could.

The Bible doesn’t rush us to consume life.
It teaches us to steward it.
The Word does not ask us to be impressive.
It asks us to be obedient.
To flee what corrupts the soul,
to pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace,
with clean hands and a teachable heart.

Sometimes I’m afraid we ask the wrong questions.
We ask, “Is this allowed?”
“Will God be mad?”
“How far is too far?”
When maybe the better question has always been:
“Is this leading me closer…or further away?”

Because truth is, being young is confusing.
We are told to live,
but not taught how to stay whole while doing it.

So when we ask,
“But what does the Bible say?”
It’s not a cage.
It’s a compass home.
Home to wholeness.
Home to rest.
Home to a way of living that doesn’t ask us to bleed just to belong.And maybe today,
that question isn’t meant to condemn us but to invite us to choose life again.

To remind us that scripture doesn’t whisper when the world screams.
It reprimands us not in a way that shames us for living, but in a way that reminds us we were made for life.
It asks gently, but firmly, that we remember our Creator in the days of our youth.

Not after the hangovers.
Not after the heartbreak.
Not after you’ve given pieces of yourself away and can’t find where they went.
And that if it’s after, you are never so far gone that you cannot be redeemed.

It tells us in Ecclesiastes 11:9 that You who are young, be happy while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

So what if enjoyment looks like discipline instead?
What if fun looks like purpose?
What if joy looks like waking up knowing you’re building something eternal?
What if enjoyment is praying when no one is watching, learning when others are sleeping, saying no when everyone says yes, investing in your spirit, your mind, your future?

What if enjoying your youth is:
• guarding your heart,
• keeping your way pure by holding fast to the Word,
• listening to instruction even when it corrects you,
• honouring wisdom passed down to you,
• choosing peace over impulse,
• obedience over applause?
All in the days of your youth.

Because the Word is not outdated, it is anchored.
Not restrictive, but protective.
Not boring, but life-giving.

We are not a lost generation.
We are a listening generation.

Ha re linku tsa lelahleha,
Ha re mehlape meipusi joaloka ha lefatše le re bolella hobane re busoa ke ea kalletseng maru.
Re bakhethoa, leha re na le ho khoptjoa.
Re bahauheloa.
Re baratuoa ba hae.

Re bacha ba botsang hore na
“Empa Molimo Eena o reng?”

That question, when asked sincerely and lived boldly,
will save us from finishing life
without knowing why we started.
It will help us seek first the Kingdom of God.

Posted in All

UNTITLED BECAUSE NO TITLE IS FIT ENOUGH

Posted on by Mpho Mathaba

Welcome to the reality of funeral programs turned into a national currency, where we print more obituaries than birth certificates, where the ink never dries on the eulogies before we’re writing new ones. Listen when I tell you another woman has passed on, I need you to understand I’m not speaking metaphorically, I’m not being poetic, I’m giving you the news before it becomes old enough to ignore. This is a roll call of the disappeared and the violated, this is a census of the silenced, this is the geography lesson they don’t teach in schools: here is where she was last seen, here is where they found what was left, here is the growing map of places we can no longer walk without remembering who we lost there. Listen to the sound of a mother identifying her daughter’s body, listen to the specific pitch of a scream when recognition and denial collide because her past survival did not guarantee her offspring safety, listen to the way silence sounds different after violence, how it has weight, how it settles into rooms and refuses to leave. This is not a poem, this is a testimony, this is evidence, this is the documentation of an ongoing massacre that everyone keeps calling something softer because femicide only counts when we decide to call it that. Listen:

They keep telling us to be careful, as if caution were a bulletproof vest, as if we haven’t already spent our entire lives being careful, as if careful ever saved anyone when the danger lives in your own home, sits across from you at dinner, says I love you with the same mouth that will later say I had to. What if we are careful and still die, what if we scream and still die, what if we whisper and still die, what if we fight back and still die, what if we don’t fight back and still die, what if every single choice we make is the wrong one because the game was rigged from the beginning, because survival was never actually an option, just a temporary reprieve, just borrowed time, just luck running out in increments? What if she was ‘loved’ and still died, found where her body was left like an apology too late to mean anything, dumped like garbage, disposed of like evidence, erased like a problem solved. And hey, they will call it a crime of passion, as if rage ever looked like devotion, as if femicide was just love gone wrong instead of hatred gone exactly as planned.

Another woman whose laughter used to fill a room now fills a coffin and we keep saying rest in peace as if peace ever rested in the bodies of women alive, as if we knew what peace tasted like, as if it wasn’t a foreign language we’ve been trying to learn our whole lives but the lessons keep getting interrupted by funerals, by vigils, by the constant low hum of grief that has become our national anthem..

This is war. This is violence baptized as love, this is murder dressed in apologies, this is a country building its monuments out of our bones and calling it romance, calling it tradition, calling it a private matter, calling it anything but what it is: a genocide in motion, an extermination so normalized we’ve started measuring our survival in days instead of years, an apocalypse in slow motion that we’ve normalized into background noise.

They say “not all men” but enough of them that I cannot walk home at night without rehearsing my obituary in my head, without wondering which photograph they’ll use when I become a hashtag or maybe my case also will not make the headlines, without composing a eulogy for just another funeral where we hold each other and pretend this is shocking when we all knew, we’ve always known, we were born knowing. We are before pictures waiting to become breaking news, we are missing posters in the making, we are bodies that haven’t been found yet, and someone is going to say we should have known better, should have seen the signs, should have left, should have stayed, should have been quieter, should have been louder, should have existed differently, should have somehow managed to survive the unsurvivable.

Listen: this is not isolated, this is not random, this is not a series of unfortunate events, this is a pattern, this is a system, this is infrastructure built on our bodies and maintained by our silence.

We are not safe in the arms that swear they love us, we are not safe in the streets that claim to protect us, We light candles that melt faster than justice moves, we hold vigils that multiply faster than trials, we say her name and her name and her name until our throats are raw and still there are more names, still there are more bodies, still there are more mothers collapsing at morgues, more children asking when mommy’s coming home, more sisters cleaning out closets full of clothes that smell like someone who should still be here.

How do you tell a child that their mother’s silence was not consent but the sound of her dying, how do you explain that the world killed her softly, quietly, privately, in the intimate spaces where screaming doesn’t carry, where neighbours hear and do nothing, where we all become complicit in our collective deafness?

Girls learn fear before they learn freedom, we inherit trauma like heirlooms, we are born knowing that our bodies are battlegrounds, that our existence is a provocation, that we will spend our lives apologizing for taking up space, for having opinions, for saying no, for saying yes, for breathing too loudly in a world that prefers us silent.

My greatest fear is not death itself but that my life will be reduced to a headline that no one reads past the first paragraph, that my mother will have to hear my name mispronounced on the news, that my story will be dissected for warning signs as if I was a mystery to be solved instead of a person who deserved to live, that I will become a statistic cited in a speech by someone who will do nothing, a data point, a moment of silence that lasts exactly sixty seconds before everyone goes back to their lives, before I am forgotten, before I become just another woman who should have known better.

But here is what I know: I know that we are not dying because we are careless, we are dying because we are women in a world that has never forgiven us for it. This is not love, this is execution, this is systematic elimination, this is cleansing, this is war, and I am tired of calling it anything softer.

We are tired of the euphemisms, tired of the think pieces, tired of the awareness campaigns that raise everything except the dead, tired of the moments of silence when what we need is noise, cacophony, a roar so loud it drowns out every excuse, every justification, every “she should have” that tries to make sense of the senseless.

Listen: I am not asking for your thoughts and prayers, I am demanding your rage, I am demanding that you feel the full weight of this, that you let it crush you the way it crushes us every single day. We should be tsunamis of fury, we should be avalanches of refusal, we should burn down every system that built itself on our bodies and then had the audacity to tell us to smile while it did.

They want us to grieve quietly, to protest politely, to die conveniently, but we are done being convenient. Another woman is dead, raped, violated… and we are furious, we are incandescent with anger, we are a forest fire of rage, and they will call us emotional, they will call us hysterical, they will use all the words designed to dismiss women who refuse to disappear quietly, but we will not be careful with our anger, we will not moderate our grief, we will not make our survival palatable for an audience that has already decided we are disposable.

This is a world that keeps building monuments to fallen heroes while using our bones as the foundation. This is a society that loves dead women more than living ones, that turns our murders into daily news, our trauma into passing content, our bodies into lessons about what not to do, where not to go, who not to trust, how not to die, as if dying was a choice we made poorly. We are not disposable, we are not collateral damage, we are not acceptable losses in someone else’s entitlement, and if this world cannot figure out how to let us live; truly live, not just survive, not just exist in a state of constant vigilance, then we will haunt it, we will haunt every man who looked away, every system that failed us, every society that shrugged and moved on. We will be the ghosts in every mirror, the names you cannot forget, the debt you can never repay, and our blood will stain every hand that stayed clean by staying silent.

Listen, there is new statistic today, and tomorrow there will be another, and the day after that another, and we will keep counting until you finally understand that this is not normal, this should never have been normal, and every single one of us who dies is a failure of everyone who lived and did nothing. This is not a poem. This is a reckoning. This is the sound of women refusing to die quietly anymore.

Hobane hee, re khathetse!

Posted in All

20 or so Things Since I Turned 20

Posted on by Mpho Mathaba

Turning 20 felt like a loud unignorable shift. Not a joyous celebration (no pun intended), not the overwhelming transformation I expected (a bit unrealistic of me but hey, I had plans and I was determined to put in the work), just deeper noticing.

Since the last December 24th, life has broken me in ways I was not prepared for.

I do not say that dramatically, I say it because it is true. This age did not come with clarity. It came with loss, with exhaustion that feels like it lives in my bones. It came with questions that loop endlessly in my mind and an ache I cannot name but carry every single day. It has not been gentle, certain or rhythmic and I’m not even sure that the difficulty has been necessary.

Still, I’ve learned a few things, or I have always known them but life just emphasised them. Not in a neat, “I have figured it out” way. More in the way that you learn to walk barefoot on glass – slowly, shakily, knowing it might hurt, but needing to move anyway. I know what you might be thinking: why would one walk barefoot on glass? Exactly!

Here are 20 things I have learned, endured or simply witnessed as I navigate what it means to be 20 and alive:

1. You don’t need to turn your life into a lesson right away.

Some things just hurt, let them. Some things are disappointing and discouraging, some are beautiful and excellent and sometimes, there is nothing for you to learn from them or at least not yet, not like the expectant revelation you are waiting for.

2. There are days you will not recognize yourself.

And that doesn’t always mean you are lost. Sometimes it just means you are changing. You are allowed to change. You are supposed to, meant to. What are humans if not ever evolving? Sometimes it’s not into someone particularly better than before, but I hope it is. If it isn’t, I hope your conscience leads you to redemption. Some days you’ll cry for the person you used to be. Other days, you’ll cry because you don’t know who you are at all.

Also, the self you are mourning may not come back, but maybe she’s not meant to.

3. Your mind can be a great liar, but a persuasive one too.

The voices in your head sound like truth. They wear your voice and they convince you that your sadness is your identity. It is not. The fear, the worry, the trauma, the insecurities…they may be real but the fact that you can overcome them is also real.

4. Faith can feel both like a lifeline and a language you’ve forgotten.

I’m holding on to God, but on other days, I feel like I’m in my own world doing my own thing. Lost, like a child who forgot her way home.

5. You can carry beauty and sorrow in the same breath.

Gratitude and grief are not opposites. I am deeply grateful, and I am deeply in pain. I am learning that these seemingly contradictory states do not cancel each other out. Gratitude can live beside sadness. And you can be grateful and still want more.

6. Alone is not always lonely and lonely is not always alone.

I have a community that cares, this I know very well. However, loneliness doesn’t always come from lack. Sometimes it comes from being unreachable, even to yourself. You can feel surrounded by love and still feel alone. You can be held and still need space. People can love you deeply and still not hold you fully, same with you. That’s not failure, that’s humanity. Also, you may be a complex being but you are not hard to love.

Some relationships will become softer, quieter. Let them. Love doesn’t always need to be loud to last.

7. You will be tempted to disappear.

But there is always someone, somewhere, hoping you don’t. Sometimes you work extra hard to ‘erase’ yourself because if you leave first, then the possible dejection will not hurt (and you learn that you never really knew how afraid you were of being a disappointment because you’ve never had to disappoint the most important people in your life, until you did). Other times, you try to make yourself unlovable in hopes that if they leave, it eases the guilt that you are the one who actually did. You pull away, shut down, lash out; not because you want to be abandoned, but because you believe it’s inevitable. Still, somehow, love finds a way in.

Some seasons ask you to retreat. Not to disappear, but to gather. To go quiet enough to hear your own heartbeat again.

8. Closure doesn’t always come.

Sometimes you have to give it to yourself. Sometimes the door stays open, but you learn to walk past it anyway (I think some wise person once said this).

9. There’s no shame in imperfection – though I still feel it.

Sometimes the one thing you’ve always held together falls apart, the one plan that felt solid enough sublimes and the one thing you never thought would go wrong goes wrong. It happens.

10. A clean room or a cup of coffee can be the day’s only win.

And sometimes that has to be enough. I like a good cup of coffee now. On Monday afternoons specifically. It feels like a small truce with life.

11. Grief changes your relationship with time.

It becomes heavier. Every moment feels like it might vanish. Every goodbye feels permanent. Time becomes torture, slow and fast at the same time.

12. The pressure to “make it make sense” is crushing.

I am tired of making sense of things. Sometimes things are just senseless and that is what makes them hard.

13. There are truths you won’t know how to tell yet.

There are versions of my truth I have not spoken out loud yet. Not because I’m dishonest (the lie of omission is a thing), but because the truth is a lot, even for me. Because I don’t always know where to begin (my English Language teachers would come for me for starting a sentence with ‘because’). Sometimes, I just straight up lie, say things like “I’m good, thanks.” I’m working on it. A friend of mine usually says “I’m trying my best” instead.

14. Fitness goals are easy to break when just getting out of bed is a battle.

And yet I still judge myself for not being disciplined enough. Also, where do we draw the line between gluttony and stress eating? (a friend and I have been trying to figure this out. Yes, my friends make up a huge part of my life.)

15. I don’t know if feelings are real constructs.

And it’s funny how feeling nothing at all is also a feeling. Saying “I don’t know” is powerful, freeing too.

16. Your mother’s love can anchor you to the world when you want to disappear.

I don’t know if anything can come close to it. This is just my own experience of it. I know there’s much more to this. There are times when the sound of my mother’s voice is the only thing that matters, even when I don’t hear what she’s saying.

17. You can sit with a loved one, laugh and still want to vanish.

Yes, too much of the vanishing thoughts. Joy and emptiness often sit at the same table. I’m trying not to feel like a fraud for that, too much pretense and performance for my liking though. Sometimes showing up is the bravest thing you’ll do though. No grand gesture, just being there.

18. The beach still makes sense when nothing else does.

And I cannot believe I never experienced this until I was 19 and I still don’t get to as often as I would like. Also, romanticising your life is not delusion (or for me, at least not always), and I only learnt this once I stopped. It’s another form of survival. Painting sunsets while drinking red grape or apple juice. Wearing perfume just for yourself. Looking at the sky for a second longer. It all matters.

19. You may not be okay, but you are not broken.

Don’t mind me saying life broke me blah blah (it did though). You are tender. You are in process. You are still here.

20. Growth doesn’t always look like progress.

Sometimes it looks like breaking down. Like sleeping too much. Like canceling everything. Like showing up anyway. Losing motivation doesn’t mean you’ve lost direction, I think.

21. Healing is brutal.

Healing is not always visible, even to you. It’s not always crying in the shower. Sometimes it’s drinking water, answering that message and dressing up for lectures. Or at least I’d like to believe this gut-wrenching process is healing. I refuse to let it be anything else. This is a refinery. It’s gold being burned to purity. It’s pressure making diamonds.

22. I did say “20 or so”, lol! There is no rulebook for becoming.

There’s just you, here, now. Failing and trying. Falling and getting up. Hiding and still hoping. And the Pinterest quotes say that’s enough for today.

23. Politics stress me out far more than I would like.

I find myself occupying my head space about things I sometimes hardly even understand and it can get quite consuming.

24. I want to learn how everyone’s brain works.

And that’s probably impossible. This, coupled with my frustration about how life could be one big lie is just…!

25. Do not ignore your joys.

It’s a good thing to be at peace. Learn to detach from the melancholy. Laugh out loud if you feel like it. Dance. Sing off-tune. Giggle. Celebrate yourself. Pamper yourself. Compliment yourself and walk exactly as good as you feel.

26. Oh, well…

Five years from now, or even tomorrow, I might disagree with everything I wrote here and I guess, that too, is okay.

Maybe 20 sometimes is about walking through the fog even when you’d rather lie down. Even though, I’ve been doing more of the lying down than the walking through the fog lately.

The proper title for this should have been “20 Things I’ve Had To Come To Terms With In My 20 Years Of Life” but the current one sounds shorter and sweeter.

P.S. – This is not me romanticising negative thoughts or something. There is nothing sweet about feeling low beyond comprehension. This is me painting you a picture of my thoughts as they come and believe me, trying to find hope in the midst of pessimistic inside voices can look something like this at times. And yes, I may or may not have said that I am never writing again, I lied to myself.

.thegirlwhowantedtobethesun

Posted in All

AN ACTUAL PIECE OF MY MIND

Posted on by Mpho Mathaba

First things first, you are going to read this (especially if you are my loved one) and want to scold me and reprimand me. You are going to tell that this is me feeding the negativity and declaring a terrible reality upon myself. But, I promise you, that is not what I am trying to do. Please try to understand, utloisisa hanyane feela. This is me trying to express whatever it is that is going on in my mind, truths I am too afraid of slapping directly into your face. I just need to be heard, to be listened to, even if it’s just for a fleeting while and sometimes what I need to voice isn’t always pleasant. My thoughts are not always lovely and kind and sweet. You might also tell me that somethings are better kept to oneself, but I have been doing that my whole life and I feel like I am about to explode. I have a very strong urge to say, “I’m okay” and reassure you, but I am truly not. So much has been wrong, and as much this post is the plainest honesty, not wrapped around in metaphors, I have ever shared, it is just a little hint, I’m afraid.

I am not feeling particularly bold as I type this, or brave. I am afraid. I am dreary. However, I am also in need. I do not know what I need, but this is a plea. This is me, typing away past midnight, begging for something I cannot voice because it something I do not know.

This is not a rebellion. It’s just me, the me that even I don’t like.

It’s not a cry for help also. Tomorrow, I will wake up, go on about my day carrying the same rotten feelings. Do not pity me, for I do not want for the truest act I have ever done in a long time to be pitied, I want it to be remembered rather.

I am sorry, truly. Now start:

Before I begin, allow me to make one thing clear. I do not wish to die. Not even in my most crushed of state is death ever a thing I truly desire. Yes, I do not wish to partake in life and at times, I would like to erase myself from existence. I have found myself feeling very out-of-touch with the experience of life as it presented to me quite often. I fail to understand it and thus I fail to sustain the desire to be present in it.

It’s not sadness, not always. It’s not despair in the way people expect. It’s a kind of a slow mental drifting, like trying to hold water in your hands. The more I try to grasp life, the more it slips away. I look around and everyone seems to have bought into a system I can’t make sense of. You’re born, you’re told what to chase, who to be, what to value, but no one really tells you why. And the answers that are offered never seem to sit quite right with me.

People say, “this is just how life is.” But why? Why this version of life? Why these rules, this structure, this endless striving? What is the point of fighting for a place in a world that doesn’t explain itself? How am I supposed to want something I don’t understand?

It’s not that I want to die. It’s that I don’t see a reason to fight for a life I feel so estranged from. My body breathes, my heart beats, but my spirit stands on the edge, unsure whether to lean in or step back. I keep waiting for some grand revelation, or even a small sign – anything to tell me that being here is more than just surviving days I didn’t ask for.

I believe in God. Deeply. I believe in the principle that His will is never in vain. But I can’t help wondering – what if we’ve misinterpreted Him, just as we’ve misinterpreted so much else? What if everything we’ve come to know about life is based on borrowed truths, half-seen shadows, or well-meaning lies? What if the truth is nothing like what we’ve imagined? What if this is all a dream? Or a poorly translated reality? I find myself caught between wanting to live for the people I love, or what I think is love, and questioning whether these feelings are even truly mine. Sometimes I wonder if love, affection, care, sadness, anger… are just echoes of conditioning, neurons firing according to some ancient map I never chose to follow. Do I even have a brain? A self? Or am I just a character in a script I never got to read?

My mind is torn. Torn between continuing to participate in what often feels like a charade, for the people I love, or whatever this thing called love truly is. Because sometimes I wonder: are these feelings even mine or just something my brain has been taught to know, taught to perform? Do I even have a brain? A self? Or am I just a pattern of thoughts in a system I didn’t design?

I sleep a lot lately. Not because it helps. Not because it soothes me. My dreams are often painfully vivid, heavy with symbols and emotions I cannot decode. My mind does not rest, even when my eyes are closed. I sleep, not always from tiredness, but perhaps from resignation. From not knowing what else to do. I’m tired, yes, but there’s a kind of tired that’s deeper than the body. A tired that seeps into your questions, your faith, your identity.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone else feels this way and just never says it out loud. If everyone’s carrying their own version of this quiet confusion, this private ache. Maybe we’re all just pretending better than we realize. Smiling with our mouths and screaming with our minds. Or maybe I’m the only one this lost. Maybe that’s the scariest part – not knowing whether this is universal or uniquely mine.

I try to ground myself in routines. Eat, shower, study, smile, sleep, repeat. But even those start to feel like rituals without meaning, motions performed in the absence of belief. I look at my hands sometimes, and they feel like someone else’s. Like I’m a visitor in my own body, doing what I’m supposed to because I’ve been told it’s “normal.” But normal doesn’t feel good. It just feels… confusing. Safe in a way that puzzles me, yet very unsafe.

And I think about time. How it keeps moving, dragging me along even when I’m not ready. The days blur together, and I wonder if I’m really living or just being carried forward by some invisible current. Sometimes I think if I stood still long enough, maybe time would forget me. Maybe the world would pause and ask if I’m okay before pushing me onward again.

I envy people who seem certain. People who have goals and five-year plans and morning routines that mean something to them. I envy their conviction, even if I don’t believe it’s real. Maybe they’ve just made peace with the questions. Or maybe they’ve stopped asking altogether.

I keep hoping that somewhere in the chaos, I’ll stumble into something – a feeling, a person, a moment – that will make everything click. That will fill in the blanks. But it hasn’t come. Not yet. Maybe it never will. And I don’t know if I should be patient or give up searching altogether.

I think of my younger self a lot lately. The one who dreamed so loudly, who believed the world would one day make sense. I want to reach back and hold her hand. Tell her I’m trying. That I haven’t given up, even if it sometimes feels like I have. That surviving isn’t failure. That maybe being lost is a form of movement too. I also think though, of how she had questions, how she suppressed her confusion and how it was much easier for her to play. I am starting to wonder if there was ever a time in my life where I ever not felt out-of-touch with my life. From as far back as I could remember, I would wonder if my life were a dream and I am about to be woken up in my actual life and realize that I’ve had a long disturbing dream.

Sometimes I feel like no one knows me, not really. Not even myself. Who am I? What am I? What am I meant to be doing here? I exist, but I don’t quite feel myself existing. And that disconnect…that hollow ache of not-knowing, it follows me. Even in joy, even in company.

I don’t even like writing anymore. Or anything, really. I just write because I don’t have anyone to talk to in a way that makes me feel like I’d make sense, especially when I already don’t understand myself. I write because silence scratches at me, not because I enjoy this. I feel like a liar, a fraud; walking through the world wearing faces I didn’t choose. I say I’m fine. I say I’m functioning. I say I’m okay. But I hate it. I hate this pretending. I hate that I don’t even know where the pretending ends and the real me begins…if such a person even exists.

But still I wake up. Still, I move. Not out of clarity, but out of habit. Out of hope that maybe one day, the world might begin to make more sense. Maybe it’s the echo of my own questions keeping me alive. And until then, I’ll sit with this not-knowing. I’ll write through it. I’ll name it. Pray through it. Read through it. Seek clarity. I won’t pretend to understand life – but I’ll stay, at least for now, in case someday I do.

I want to believe there’s a reason I’m still here. That even in this fog, my being matters. That maybe, just maybe, feeling all this so deeply is its own kind of purpose.

Bye, for now, or forever. I don’t know. I feel really horrible.

.the girl who wished to be The Sun

Posted in All

The Light Mug

Posted on by Mpho Mathaba
Written on 19.01.2025, part of my submission for a writing competition I lost. Inspired by this moment from 02.09.2024 and the bits and pieces of friendship, my home country and the love I’ve received and given even in moments where it felt like there was no energy to even feel love. For the people who continuously choose me without much of a reason to, for giving me a light mug to drink from even when the beverage tastes too bitter or feels too hot…thank you.

The air outside The Light Mug Café in Maseru carried the scent of freshly baked pastries and the faintest whisper of wood smoke from nearby braziers. The night was alive, and so were we. The city’s quiet sophistication mingled with the unspoken chaos of its streets, a juxtaposition as electric as the hum of anticipation that buzzed in our veins.

We were a motley crew of friends, bonded by the shared struggles of university and the hunger to escape them, if only for a while. Thabo, with his booming laughter that could fill an empty hall, was our ringleader. His charm was a magnet, drawing us out of our shells. Then there was Lebo, whose sharp wit often left us in stitches, and Palesa, the quiet observer, her eyes always searching for beauty in the mundane. I, Mpho, the narrator of this evening, brought my own quirks- a penchant for overanalysing everything and a deep-seated love for moments like this.

As we stepped inside, the warm light of the café spilled over us like a blanket. The room was a symphony of colour: terracotta walls adorned with Basotho hats, shelves lined with books and fairy lights that twinkled like fallen stars. The gentle hum of a jazz saxophone melded seamlessly with the chatter of patrons, their laughter and clinking glasses weaving a tapestry of sound.

We claimed a corner table, its surface polished to a mirror shine, reflecting our excited faces. Menus were handed out, though Thabo announced almost immediately, “I’m getting the chicken pie. The best in town, no debate.” Lebo rolled her eyes. “You’ve said that every time we come here, and yet you’re always surprised when it’s as good as you remember.”

The night unfolded like a slow, intoxicating dance. The café’s signature Light Mug Mocha – a decadent concoction of rich chocolate, espresso and a hint of cinnamon – became our centerpiece. Its aroma swirled in the air, inviting us to indulge, to savour, to let go of the weight we carried daily. We talked about everything and nothing. Lebo’s voice rose and fell dramatically as she recounted her most recent clash with a professor. Thabo countered with his latest attempt at cooking- a near disaster involving burnt rice and a smoke fest.

And then Palesa spoke. Her quiet demeanour often meant her words were rare but precious. “Do you think we’ll remember nights like this?” she asked, her voice barely louder than a whisper. The question hung in the air, heavy with meaning. Silence fell over us like a gentle snowfall.

I looked around the table, at the faces of my friends- their features softened by the glow of candlelight, their laughter lines etched by years of shared joy and struggle. “How could we ever forget?” I said, the words tumbling out before I could overthink them. “Nights like this are what life is made of.”

Outside, the city pulsed with its own rhythm. The lights of Maseru glittered like jewels scattered across a velvet cloth, and the distant sound of traffic was a reminder that life went on, even as we lost ourselves in this moment. Lebo nudged me, her eyes gleaming with mischief. “You’re being poetic again. Write this down for your next masterpiece.”

We laughed, the sound spilling out into the café and drawing a few curious glances, but we did not care. For a few hours, the weight of exams, the uncertainty of the future and the world’s restless demands melted away. We were just us, a constellation of souls bound by a shared orbit.

As the night wore on, the café grew quieter. Plates emptied, conversations slowed, and the jazz saxophone’s melody softened. Thabo leaned back in his chair, his smile more subdued now. “We should do this more often,” he said, and we all nodded, knowing full well how life’s currents would soon pull us in different directions.

“Let’s take a picture,” Lebo said, pulling out her phone. We crowded together, laughing as Thabo insisted on being in the middle. The flash illuminated our faces, freezing the moment in time. It was not perfect – Palesa blinked and I was mid-laugh – but it was real. It was us.

As the night deepened, the reality of our situation began to weigh on us. We had not planned how we would get back to Roma. Public transport had long since ceased and taxis were no longer an option this late. Thabo joked about camping outside the café, but the flicker of worry in his eyes betrayed him.

“Maybe those guys can help us,” Lebo said, tilting her head toward a nearby table. A group of older men, loud and boisterous, had been watching us intermittently. Lebo’s casual flirtation; a glance here, a coy smile there, had caught their attention. One of them raised his glass in our direction, a sly grin playing on his lips.

My stomach lurched. This was Maseru, where the veneer of charm often masked darker intentions. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, my voice firmer than intended. Lebo raised an eyebrow. “Why not? They are offering a ride, or lodging.”

I glanced at the men again, their laughter grating against my nerves. They looked old enough to be our fathers, and I was done hunting for a father’s love in between strangers’ sheets. The thought sent a cold shiver down my spine. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “We’ll figure something out.”

Palesa sighed. “Do you have a better plan?” Her tone was not accusatory, just tired. We all were. The night had been magical, but the reality was creeping back in, unrelenting in its demands.

“Let’s ask the staff if they know someone reliable,” Thabo suggested. “We’ll pay extra if we have to.”

Relief washed over me. It was not a perfect solution given our student budgets, but it was better than relying on strangers with too many questions in their eyes. The café manager, a kind woman with a warm smile, made a futile attempt of calling a driver she knew. But as we waited for the driver to decide, something shifted in us. The initial worry began to dissipate, replace by a quiet acceptance of the moment we were still living in.

When we finally stepped back out into the night, the chill air was a stark contrast of the café’s warmth. We stood there for a moment, huddled together against the cold, reluctant to move and ruin the perfect stillness.

We eventually resigned to the back of The Light Mug, where the world seemed to pause. A small patio overlooked the dim-lit streets, and the stars were clearer than they had any right to be in a city, as if the universe itself had decided to put on a show just for us. Despite our initial plans to stay from alcohol, Thabo grabbed a lone bottle of wine from the counter. It was not stealing, right? Someone paid for it and probably forgot it there, we were showing it some grace. Lebo found a playlist on her phone, the soft hum of familiar tunes filling the air.

We cozied up together, sharing a single blanket someone had draped over a chair. The night’s chill wrapped around us, but it only made the warmth of our laughter sharper. We sipped wine from mismatched glasses, the tang of it grounding us in this surreal, unplanned magic. Palesa started singing a childhood song, her voice lilting and soft, and one by one, we joined. Off-key, forgotten lyrics, bursts of laughter in between but it did not matter. The stars did not mind and neither did we.

As the first hint of dawn kissed the horizon, we knew the night was almost over. We would find our way back home in the morning but for now, this was enough. The laughter, the wine, the stars…this was home, even if only for tonight. Would we remember this night? The laughter, the fear, the small triumph of making our own little home away from home? I did not know. But for now, it was enough to have lived it, to have the fullness of it. As I laid there, I tried to soak it all in; the weight of it, the beauty, the fragility, the fleeting magic of a night out with friends, where the world seemed to pause just long enough for us to breathe. That night, we were infinite.

.Mpho

Posted in All

DAY 1 – 29.04.2025

Posted on by Mpho Mathaba
SIP. BREATHE. STAY.

At times, I am thoroughly convinced that the mind possesses a will of its own, or more unsettling still, that it does not belong solely to me. Though I accept the truth that control is not an all-encompassing privilege we mortals possess, that unpredictability is stitched into the fabric of our humanity, I cannot help but wonder: if the mind is mine, entirely and unequivocally mine, should I not wield some semblance of authority over it? Should I not, at the very least, be able to hold the reins when it charges into unfamiliar terrain, to halt its unbidden voyage into territories I neither recognize nor desire?

Would it not be merciful enough to spare me the torture of its descent into chaos? Would I be subjected to the torment of thoughts that spiral, unanchored, into the shadows of memory, into speculative fictions laced with dread or into wounds long sealed but never quite healed? Well, it slips past my grasp, a runaway force dragging me into memory mazes, imagined futures, old wounds dressed in new stories.

My mind is like a relentless current, sweeping me along whether I protest or plead. It replays half-forgotten conversations like a broken cassette. It invents tragedies with staggering creativity. It tightens around my chest like an invisible thread, spun from a thousand “what ifs” and “if onlys.” It drags me into labyrinths of self-doubt, where logic cannot find me and calm refuses to follow.

There are days when I feel like a reluctant passenger, watching as my mind hurtles forward – too fast, too loud, too far. My form remains motionless, yet within me rages a storm too loud to silence. I long for stillness, for quietude, for the gentle hush of a mind at rest. But instead, I am hostage to its noise, a reluctant audience to its never-ending monologue. And yet, there is something painfully intimate in these moments too. A reminder that even what is most familiar can feel foreign. That we can live within ourselves and still feel lost. That we can be present, but not at peace. Alive, but unanchored.

I have tried to outrun it. I have tried distractions – throwing myself into work, into noise, into the business of becoming someone who seems okay. I have tried discipline, telling myself I should be stronger, that I should not be shaken so easily. That if I just think the right thoughts, the wrong ones will leave me alone. But they do not.

But maybe, just maybe, the mind’s rebellion is not betrayal. Perhaps it is a cry for attention. A plea to be seen, held, heard, especially in the moments I try to silence it most.

I have come to realize that the mind does not respond well to war. That when I fight it, it fights back harder. Louder. Sharper. More persistent. And so, I am learning – slowly, unevenly, sometimes painfully – to sit with it. To listen when it runs wild. To ask it where it’s going, and why. To meet its chaos with curiosity rather than shame. Maybe that is the most radical act of all: to stay. To stay when it is uncomfortable. To stay when it hurts. To stay and listen, not just to what the mind says, but to what it might need. And in doing so, to build a bridge – tentative, fragile, but real – between myself and the wild mind that shares my name. And though I still do not have all the answers, I am starting to believe that maybe control was never the point, connection was.

I used to think peace was the absence of noise. Now I wonder if it is the ability to stand inside the noise and not be swallowed by it. To let the mind run and still know who you are beneath its momentum. To let it speak, even scream, and still respond with compassion. Maybe peace does not look like perfect stillness. Maybe it looks like sitting in the storm and saying, “You are not stronger than me today.” Maybe it is in recognizing that I can feel overwhelmed and still be okay. That I can doubt and still choose to hope. That I can ache and still be whole. It is not silence, nor perfection, nor the elimination of struggle. It is presence. It is the decision to stay grounded even when the winds of the mind howl. It is the gentle resistance to being consumed. It is the refusal to abandon oneself.

There is a quiet power in befriending the mind, in offering it kindness when it least deserves it; when it is flooding you with doubt, dragging skeletons out of closets you thought were locked, whispering all the things you fear might be true. In those moments, I remind myself that I am not my thoughts. I am the space that holds them. I am the one who observes, who endures, who chooses again and again to stay.

And still, I falter. There are days when I am undone, when the noise wins, when I am caught in the undertow of my own inner world. But even then, I remind myself: this is not failure. This is practice. And practice, even in its messiest form, is a kind of devotion.

So here I am. Practicing. Trying again. Listening again. Holding space for the wild, the tender, the restless, the tired. Learning not just to survive my mind, but to trust that it, too, is part of the story I am becoming.

Perhaps this, in the end, is the quiet miracle of being human: that we can be afraid and still choose love. That we can be overwhelmed and still choose softness. That we can dwell inside turbulent minds and still carve out spaces of peace – fragile, fleeting, but fiercely our own.

Just this afternoon, during my study break, hands curled around the comforting warmth of an Americano, a chocolate muffin resting heavily on its napkin beside my laptop, I found myself thinking: perhaps the mind is not so different from this muffin and this coffee.

On the surface, the muffin appears simple, harmless – even inviting. But bite into it, and it holds pockets of richness you did not expect. Dark chocolate buried deep, melting into softness; sweetness and bitterness tangled together in one dense, unassuming form. Just like the mind – layered, unpredictable, not always sweet, and not always easy to digest.

Some bites are light and airy. Others catch you off guard; a chunk of something too intense, too heavy. There are moments when it crumbles messily in your hands, refusing to be neat or manageable. But still, you eat. Slowly. Patiently. Because even in its chaos, there is nourishment. Even in its mess, something warm remains.

Maybe my thoughts, wild and wandering, sharp-edged and soft-hearted, are like that too. Maybe they were not made to be perfect. Just present. Just real.

I watched the coffee swirl as the sugar dissolved, thinking how much it resembled the mind: dark, strong, chaotic in motion…but slowly, with stillness, it settles. The sweetness that once resisted now melts inward. The storm subsides. And in that moment, I remembered that peace does not demand the absence of chaos – it only asks that we sit with it long enough to see it change.

Maybe that is all I can do – sip, breathe, stay. Trust that in time, even the most restless storms will find their calm. And when they do not, at least I will be there – anchored, aware, and never truly alone within myself. So, I sit. I sip. I take another bite. I return to myself gently, knowing that I do not need to have it all figured out to be whole. I only need to stay.

.Mpho