SHAME ?

"Wear it on your face, on your chest, on your legs, in your hair, on your sleeve, so if they ask you where you took it, tell them, Here it is. There is nothing you can do." 🥀🎕💮🎴

Your locs are laid on your chest in three main strands. Two on the left, one on the right. You have let the others flow down past your shoulders and onto your back, free. You are wearing a green beanie, and nothing else to cover the perfection that is your face. Your soul calls to me, and I don't think I have it in me to refuse. You turn your head to the left, as the second shot is taken, perfect, just like the first. He asks you to strike another pose, and you do. You close your eyes slightly, and I know the direction in which they are looking. God why do I know this?

You look at the camera, as the light flashes, front and back. You know you like to tease me, and I know you are doing it now, you seem to dare me to challenge the hold you have on me. I can't. You place your left hand on your thigh, and I notice the tattoo on your arm. I had forgotten you were always rebellious. You let me take a minute to soak it in, to drink all the seduction: the way your hand moves to expose the shiniest of skins on your thigh, the way you have just a shadow of a grin on your face, the way you contort your eyebrows in the most sinister, yet shy way ever possible, and the way your eyes are telling me so may stories. Among them, that you sense some disconnect. Something is wrong, I haven't said anything, but you nonetheless notice.  

You are right. 

You know I have this penchant for keeping things close to my heart- both good and bad. Just like you know that I collect the words you say to me, and wear them on a string around my neck, close to the pulse in my throat, the thump of my heart. It is in that light that I collected your words, and read so much into them, so much that I could not recognize you at all. I asked myself, did I really give myself to you, yet that is how you felt all this time?

You told me that you prayed that our souls would be united for all of eternity. What a bunch of hogwash. I realize now, that I take all the bad things, all the trauma, all the hurt, and distill them into something eternal. Almost saying, "Give me all your pain, and I will make a masterpiece." Well... All the King's men and all the King's horses will never put me back together again. 

Many are the times you have used this on others, but now..."You should be ashamed of yourself."

Let's dissect that, shall we?

Shame, at least in part, stems from the emotion of disgust. The secondary, self-conscious emotion of shame may be experienced when the primary emotion of disgust is reflected on the self. It is a problem emotion. It generates undue conformity. It ultimately causes resentment and counterproductive behaviour. I blame it on my cognitive dissonance. Before we veer too far off, let's finish on this shame. 

There are four paradigms of shame- Unrequited love: a yearning for a complete love, Unwanted exposure: self-explanatory, Disappointed expectation: dissatisfaction that follows the failure of expectation, and finally, Exclusion: also self- explanatory. How then did it come about? One and two are particularly relevant. 

SHAME (caused by you)  + (Existential Reality) = Cognitive Dissonance theory. 

I still blame you though. I refuse to understand that you lack Cognitive Empathy. It is a skill, and throughout our lives, we learn to recognize the emotional state of others. You could not understand my state, and your words are seared into my soul. The one you claim that should be tied to yours forever. "He is half of my soul."

I am ashamed you put me here. Why did I have to learn the difference between cognitive and emotional empathy? Why did I have to learn the four responses that give birth to cognitive dissonance? (Change or justify the cognition, add another cognition or deny information that conflicts with that cognition) but who is asking anyway? 😂😂

Now we're constantly walking on eggshells. You'll always be insensitive. Too abrasive. 

Your fingers were prodding, searching to find those soft places (all of them were soft), your hands were pulling, lifting, and your hair, once again fell on the sides of your face. That mouth of yours was the worst. Spitting daggers and knives, cutting, destroying. You cannot recover. "You should be ashamed of yourself," You had been placed above the rest, above reproach. Don't cry to me when you're at the bottom of the barrel. The memory now tastes like salt and embers. I wanted to forget, it seems I shan't. 

Oooh Hush my dear. It's been a difficult year. I'll fly- by- the- seat- of- your-pants, and call your bluff. I've always been a little poco-loco- and I have this strange feeling I'm not myself anymore. It's hard to put into words, But I guess I was fast asleep, and someone came and disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling. Most days, I am a museum of things I want to forget. My skin tingles like its covered in ashes. Embers and ashes. October smells of ashes, and yet it insists. Softly. But it insists. 

I don't know whether I forgave you, maybe I did, on account your small- mindedness. Remember the four things, from which we cannot recover: The stone after it is thrown, the occasion after the loss, the time after it is gone, and last but not least, the word after it is spoken. 'Once a word is spoken and it goes out, we can't find it. And once it does its damage, regardless of how powerful we are, we cannot recover it.' 

You can see that I can see it in your eyes. The hurt, the remorse. The fear of losing out. He finishes with the shoot, and tells you what a great sport you have been. You take all these words in, all the while your eyes never leaving mine. He tells you how its been amazing working with you, and how he can't wait to see you next month. I see an expectation in your eyes, your body language has always been so apparent. Why does no else notice this? You walk with  a vain, pompous feeling, and you wait by the seat where I had been observing you from. You are aware of the conversation we've just had, and the promises you have made. I extend my hand to you, and you grab it, and you don't let go- even when it gets sticky and clammy. 

ABAPHANSI BAVUMILE -  the underlying agreed other

UKUBA SHANELENE-  if we deserve each other

THINA SOBABINI-  both of us

NASIKUNYE - let's be together

A.S.