To Live Is to Die in the Most Beautiful Way. {poetry}
{source}
I used to rage against this existence
I was convinced that life never deserved beautiful spirit children like myself
I talked of death as if it was separate from life,
Romanticizing it because dying always seem beautiful to those who love
too much, without hope
But then I realized:
I am already dead and dying in so many places
I am already a ghost in all the places that I have ever been to
The places I have seen and touched still hold pieces of my presence
I have gone into rooms and changed the color of the air and the
opinion of the space
Then disappeared from the space even though my presence still lingers there
I have left parts of my existence in the spaces that I have occupied
I have been mourned by many lovers, mourned by entire countries and
once I heard the moon in a different country announce my death there
My lover is still trying to bury me — in his memories, in his skin and
that café we used to love
He does not know that I exist just for the purpose of dying
Death:
And yes, I am addicted to dying
The everyday mundane and insignificant ways to die
The dying that realizes death as part of life
“Our ways of dying are our ways of living”
I find myself deliberately leaving traces of me everywhere
Everywhere:
In mundane conversations, in the day-to-day work, in the spaces that
fill my life
And every time I imagine those bits growing, becoming fat, leading to
the final play and the final death
Counting Life:
Life is not to be counted in years or days, as time cannot erode life
Death is in the experience… experience: words uttered, the flaking of
the skin, the rumble of laughter, the loving
Only living has permission to deplete life
Life is not collected, it is spent:
I used to be obsessed with collecting and preserving
Vowing to one day go back to picking pieces of me off this existence
Pick me off my lover’s skin, off the two-hour conversations, off
the many laughters
Thinking time was stealing something that was preciously mine
The feeling of being eroded and the fear of losing
The Epiphany:
I shall happily let myself die
I will happily pass pieces of myself, scattered in the streets like
strange things
I will leave myself clinging to my lover’s skin
Leave myself lingering about that house I used to live in twenty-five years ago
Leave a bit of my breath in the cup of red bush tea that I just had
I will leave me carelessly everywhere because where I am headed
there’s no baggage allowed with the self
Maybe my life will be defined not in the building, and not in the
collecting, but in the spending
Because I have just realized that by living, I am dying in the most beautiful way.
***
Khutsafalo Kasale is a service yogini, a writer, an activist, an African patriot from Botswana, and a lover of all things Art and Culture. As a service yogini, she dedicates her time teaching Yoga to those who desperately need it but cannot afford it, at orphanages, psychiatric hospitals and community centers. She dreams of writing a manual for the dead some day. You can connect with Khutsafalo via her website or Twitter.
***
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