Africana: Fingertips On Naked Skin. A Love Letter To African Adolescence by Anisa Of The Sunflowers

Published in Qwani 01

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NAMES AND OVERALL IDENTIFYING QUALITIES ALTERED FOR LITERARY AND MYTHOLOGICAL PURPOSES.

🌕

Mumbi.

The Ex.

I am a muse, I am a muse, I am a muse, I am a muse… I am your muse.

I dress my adequately oiled hair in my beige headscarf and smile at my reflection. The thick faux locks add volume to my head, I glance at the locks that still dangle boneless over my back and smile walking away.

My heart takes new, young and virgin beats as I scan the busy hallway that early morning ready to experience the day. The beating is soft and gentle, like butter.

You will start calling me butterscotch shortly after we meet, in just a few seconds to come. I am going to remember the exact moment that your lips will choose to caress my skin with similes forever…

“Your skin is as smooth as butter…”

“I desire to trace my tips across your butterscotch skin violently, ravenously but still intricately…” Will eventually become your prayer.

My blood pumps gently through me, before you begin to exist. Before you touch me. You, a singularity that was seemingly borne from the kinky interlaced threads of an agony within me whose tears have never dried. Saying:

“Let there be a projection of all my longings. Those of a romantic nature with specks of some of an otherworldly origin…”

It was the morning that we would lock eyes, and then my heart would finally spontaneously combust…

“…and there was man.”

Loamy earth toned eyes lay gently tucked onto your face. Your tuft beards; those that are crisp to touch. The way your lips rest solemnly between them. How you first said my name, how the letters made love to your tongue. How it sounded like a whispered climax…

“Behold, a projection of all my longings.”

How I wanted you. How I wanted you. How much I wanted y-

I sway briskly past the groups of people scattered all around me. The locks are still new and sore on my scalp but I feel them as they dance in waves to my every move; each lock to lock interaction seemingly adding extra kicks to my steps.

I reach for the door knob and take a step forward. My eyes close at the divine moment of my forward propulsion, but then they are forced open instantaneously by a sudden tugging that pulls me back.

I wish I’d say we collided into each others arms and immediately began to appreciate and perceive touch, how our individual skins blend into each other at their edges… but we didn’t.

Your beaded bracelet gets stuck in my hair suddenly pulling me back. My headscarf loosens and glides towards your arm.

All extensions of me crave to be close to you. I reveal myself to you undressed, tresses of hair upright hoping that you will taste their longing.

Naturally I smile, apologizing quickly as I usually do when I feel awkward. You smile back (and I gasp) and you say that you’re sorry too. I watch your eyes as they gallop across my hair into my eyes, we stay eye to eye for a moment. I giggle involuntarily and hold my breath.

It’s funny how people begin to exist once we perceive them.

🌞

Gikuyu.

I look at her as she passes me by unknowingly.

She’s the girl I saw yesterday. The one who smiled and laughed while I engaged her, or rather while she engaged me. Her smile was the most genuine smile that I had ever beheld.

She approached me, without putting much thought to it and asked if I believed that life imitates art. It was random. Placing her hand on my shoulder gently, she looked at me. Really looked at me as I struggled to articulate my words to her; denying.

I wanted to explain to her how much I wanted to kiss her. I should have kissed her.

She said that she was attempting to unveil a concept that came to her recently. Her fingers danced around in the air almost as if they were connected to her vocal cords, moving in line with the vibrations. Attempting to translate her tongue. A bristle of my mane stretched towards the stars.

The conversation was short. It looked like it was a thing she was asking almost anyone she would choose to encounter in the dining hall that night. Her confidence enthralled me.

I don’t think she remembers me.

It’s funny how you’re veiled from existing in people’s minds until they begin to perceive you.

She is going to occupy the most veiled, incorruptible and holy parts of my psyche forever.

🌕

Mumbi.

THREE YEARS,

FORTY MOONS AND FIVE EXCLIPSES LATER

PART ONE: DEATH.

On the last day I saw you, I wore blue

My lips were painted a bleeding red,

Cherubic, like the beating heart I left on your palms all those many suns ago

It had now been years since our sapphire hearts broke and I had stopped weeping

I did not weep anymore

I did not shed a hallowed tear

My feelings for you were once a vast stream flowing through a gulley

Whose banks broke leaking all the love out of me in landslides

I ran and fell and ran trying to carry them back into me but the stream gushed

The sacred waters ebbing farther and farther away from my grasp

I knelt by its banks under many moons weeping hoping to fill it once more

The last day I saw you I wore blue

My gown hugged me

Affixed itself to me

It’s fabric stretching all over the planet that was my skin the moment I saw you

I stood in front out you incandescently azure

The fluvial waters of my passions had crashed back into my chest cavity drowning me

An Orphelic transfiguration

I watched your eyes as they danced through each seam when you saw me

You took a step back looking at me as you always did

Like it scared you how deeply your heart was willing to dive into my waters

“Ophelia,” her name leaked out of the frizzy bangs that hung lifelessly above my eyes

I hope her name kissed the curves of your ears

We crossed paths again. I wish I could say that the girl you saw standing in front of you had changed. That the blades of your daggers of heartbreak that sent me pummeling into the counsellor’s room three years ago had seized butchering me.

I wish I could say that my womb tore down all the temples she built for you inside her but I can’t. Fragments of you will forever be lodged safely within all the warm nurturing spots loving you lit up.

Goodbye.

PART TWO: DECAY

A significant amount of time later.

My faux locks days were way behind me. I had adorned my hair in thick heavily gelled matutas that would mostly spend their days hiding under a hat.

Some more significant amount of time later.

It was an oddly esoteric Monday. I awakened from a cryptic symbolic dream with an unquenchable want to wash my greasy matutas. I undid the three-knot twists and stood under the shower as it flowed down my damp skin in sensate slithers baptizing my prostrating body hair. My fingertips attempted to mould my scalp like clay into sacred spirals as I lathered my moist spongy afro with my shea butter shampoo as if saying:

“Let us make man in our own image.”

I exhaled.

Fingers getting lost in my warm bush, eyes closed… I was making love to each wisp. Kneading as a form of worship.

At noon, there is a boy. He stands consciously aware of his posture, the group of dark curled hairs descending over his cinnamon hued forehead and the fact that my friends and I are approaching him. I am aware that I am slowly getting allured by his intoxicatingly textured hair.

“Hey, I love your hair. Could I feel it?” I ask smiling.

“…Yeah sure,” he responds staring at me. He has the most fascinating gaze.

I slip my fingers into his mop of coily hair and let them explore his sanctuary briefly.

His hair is an amalgamation of the finest threads of tough yarn. I could spend the rest of my life feeling it’s bold textures as they vibrate into my palm, travel through me and explode into my pressure points.

Sentience.

Sentience.

…Erotic sentience…

“It was very nice to meet you,”

“You mean me or my hair?”

“…I really can’t say,” I laugh pulling my hand away from his head.

My afro did not shrink that afternoon.

🌞

Gikuyu.

3:36 am

A frail cry escapes me.

She has consumed every inch of my flesh with her engulfing fires. I am hopelessly and overwhelmingly taken by her. My mind has refused to dwell on any other concepts but the lingering abstractions of her form and the giddy bursts of her giggles. How she looked at me with her black seed eyes. The way her lips moisten themselves in a subtle smack.

Her lips. Her lips. Her lips…

I close my eyes clenching my fist.

Shortened breathing… The sudden surge of heat waves across the nervous system.

Her eyes; how they analyse me, study me, destabilise me. She pierces into me with her gaze. I pray to the sun, moon and stars to get close to her, I call out to the gods seeking her. They gaze back in concerned awe of my irrationality when it comes to her, when I’m close to her, when I think about her. She was so close to my grasp that I could taste her fragrance this afternoon. I want to sink into the depths of her afro with my tips. I crave embracing her honey skin in my arms and feeling her as her hands slither across me.

I stare at the mess I've made shamefully as I struggle to catch my breath. I sit with the electric spasms still rushing through me for a while.

The indistinguishable natures of adoration and objectification.

🌕

Mumbi.

3:33am

PART THREE: TRANSMUTATION.

I open my eyes swiftly. My brain is still processing my sudden consciousness. It takes a couple of minutes before I realize that I’m on my back. My body feels oddly weightless, I run my palms across my torso and the finest silk greets them. My body is wrapped in a scarlet red silk cloth. I look up…

I am looking at a sky of wavy colors and they shimmer as they move like organic slugs in the air. They feel each other at their edges branching out as new shades in response. The birth of color is endless.

The firmament of hues has my eyes transfixed. There’s sudden humming, the melody feels familiar. My heart beats in tune with the melody, I am lighter than weightlessness. I levitate, leaving the silk cloth below me. I feel the fabric as it sheds off my skin like scales departing from me through my thighs, revealing me.

The humming evolves into harmonising melodies that whisper, “I love you”.

“mr i Tm”

“I love you,”

He sang.

I recall the voice, it's new and familiar in my mind. I decipher it in any language, it surprises me.

I sit upright suddenly, gasping. I’m in my room, on my bed and in my red sleeping gown. I quickly feel it’s fabric with my hands to confirm that I’m still clothed. My face is flustered and moistened with sweat.

Specks of subtle stimulations blew through me lightly like gentle breezes. They linger over the tiny hairs on my skin like the lips of a lover breathing clumsily over mine after an intense moment of passion. Their embers shining meekly like the luminance of a dying star. The thought of the boy with the hair of incomparable character cannot escape me…

My phone vibrates alerting my senses. I reach for it drowsily seeing the notification popped up:

4:02am

Instagram Message:

TheeGikuyu: Hey.

oh wow, this is oddly coincidental…

Mumbi999🌕: Hello 🙂

TheeGikuyu: I didn’t expect you to be up.

Mumbi999🌕: I didn’t expect your text. How did you even find my Instagram?

TheeGikuyu: Very potent psychic abilities. Is that believable?

Okay, where is this going…

Mumbi999🌕: Haha… I didn’t know that I was conversing with a mystic. Is that why your hair is so good? Hair potion?

TheeGikuyu: I should cut it off and gift you at this point.

Mumbi999🌕: Omg I’m just a big hair enthusiast. You caught me. Btw, you kind of look familiar…

TheeGikuyu: Yeah, we’ve crossed paths a couple of times… unbeknownst to you.

Mumbi999🌕: Okay ominous hair god…👁️👁️

TheeGikuyu: 😂😂

TheeGikuyu: I hope this doesn’t sound weird but do you mind hanging out tomorrow if you’re free??

Oh boy, okay. Does he know? Just keep it casual… Don’t mention anything about the… Intensely, specific dream.

Mumbi999🌕: Ummmm, where exactly are we to hang out. If we are to hang out.

TheeGikuyu: Idk, the park maybe

Mumbi999🌕: So that you can bludgeon me and bury me under the trees…

TheeGikuyu: That’s actually quite a common eventuality of most park hangouts. Statistically, of course.

Mumbi999🌕: They should hire you in marketing

TheeGikuyu: I’ll follow this suggestion through one day. Keep tabs.

*Mumbi999🌕 reacted to your message: 👍*

TheeGikuyu: So tomorrow?

Mumbi999🌕: Yeah sure, let’s go defy statistics in nature.

TheeGikuyu: Great.

*Mumbi999🌕 reacted to your message: ❤️*

🌞

Gikuyu.

I will release all these eruptions of pure guttural energy and I will collect them in a clear jar and place it next to my bed. Every night before I sleep I will place a finger on its glazed surface and pray to it that a molecule of it’s essence glides through the glass into me.

I will call the erupting beam of light joy because it fills me and radiates from me

🌕

Mumbi

3:36pm.

PART FOUR: REBIRTH.

I meet him, by the stream under the tall flowering tree at the park.

The moon shines in her chalky light inspite of the sun.

She agrees with me.

He is radiant.

I am a girl and I am young. I sway sideways with my palms locked neatly in each hip dip. I graze at my body’s subtle craters. I am a rock outcrop standing in front of him.

"Hi," his tongue dances.

"Hey," I smile.

We walk side by side awkwardly moving deeper into the heart of the trees. I want with all the life in me to tell him about the dream but I can't get myself to bring it up.

"I wanted to you that, you are a very beautiful woman. Your facial features intrigue me... (Laughs) In the best way," he says softly.

"Thank you, "

"It's the first thing I wanted to tell you when I saw you actually, corniness aside," we laugh.

"You should have," I say meeting his gaze.

"I should have,"

We walk.

There was a tree and there was a cooling breeze. The little birds kept singing their subtle melodies. We sat still and absorbed it all; the wind glided along our skins and settled. We were suddenly covered in sentient fog when we got deeper into the trees. In private. Together.

I watch the tree as her twigs sway, I watch her as she evolves into a beacon for birds. I smiled when I feel her vibrations embrace me.

"Take off your shoes and follow me," I whisper.

He follows.

Kinda just want to dance in the middle of a family of trees filled with floral undergrowth and floating dragon flies. My heart expanding with each movement.

If I could dance to my death I would

I want to dance with him.

...and so we do. In the heart of the trees. Slowly and a bit awkwardly for just a moment.

"Tell me how you're feeling right now," I look up at his smiling face.

"Like a beautiful painting. Impressionistic I think, a cityscape? Green, yellow, red, orange and blue. It's blurry and full of lights. I love it intensely, I'm serious." He responds quickly.

His eyebrows stiffen, his gaze immediately settles in my eyes. He says it and I smell the piercing scent of subtle desperation. I should know, I wear it on me everyday.

"Tell me the most random thing about yourself that you'd ever think about," he said.

Hmmm...

"My tongue and stomach usually crave certain flavours that I usually can’t compartmentalize and seek, so most of the time I'm always seeking that flavour when I try new foods and stuff. I crave very deeply to behold and hold onto experiences bigger than myself. My body is made of desires."

The words slide out of my lips almost involuntarily.

He stares at me in silence for a while.

"Mine too,"

He holds my hand.

"How are you feeling right now? He asks

"I can show you..."

I kiss him.

The Kiss:

The moon was luminescent in her faint fullness.

I linger my gaze at her through the branches

Swallowing all the bits of her that I could in gulp like sighs,

Barely giving space for breath to fill me...

No regard for my airless lungs.

I wanted to be one with her,

Wanted to be her,

as beautiful as she was.

Selene,

Selene.

A lover I was,

clinging onto the sight of her

almost throwing myself through...

Gasping for air while I gulped down all the bits of her that I could.

*breathless inhales*

Weeping

I was in love

I was distraught

But He was waiting for me inside

Beneath the branches

The time had come for us to be reborn

I looked back at her wiping the tears across my damp cheeks

Her beauty overwhelmed me

The weeping continued

She shone her light through the branches

Over us

My heart stood exposed, erupting within the spotlight... Unembarrassed

Weary

Finally saying,

"Touch me tenderly and I will peel myself for you."

So I turned towards Him and he held my hand pulling me deeper into the moonlight

"I unfold myself for you,"

I exhaled

The cleaning began.

The Next Morning.

In my dreams last night I saw the most beautiful night sky with the most beautiful sea of stars. I felt small as I watched them burn, a trillion lightyears away but I felt seen. For the first time in my life I felt like I was being held by something bigger than all of us and I wasn’t so lonely anymore, so I smiled and stared some more

To communicate more with the writer, find her on:

Email: anisam580@gmail.com

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Photo by Angela Roma