. . . the process Before place, before time. Before God separated the water from the skies. Before factories, before machines, before money, before screens. Before the internet, before iPhones. Before you and before me. It was vacant. And from this empty all there was to do was grow. And so we did. And then we waited. We waited to see how things would unfold. We listened to how many stories were told. We watched and saw how things could flow, how they could change and they could burn. How things got better while things got worse. So we began to pray and we learned to break. We broke to let the light in. Broke to let it out. Broke and waited for the right thing to fill tired skins out. We broke to break and broke to heal. Broke to feel alive and broke to just feel. Broke to humble and we broke to build. Broke to take. Broke to give. Broke to forget and broke to fix. From fixing we learned and from learning came life. Came reasons to go and more reasons to try. But more than that, from breaking we know that though we shed, we can always regrow. Always reseed. Always restart. This is the natural process of a heart. This book mirrors the process. The building, the breaking, the learning and recreating. Your skin turns inside out. Each limb becomes a heart. Bloody body parts across plain paper. Find some I s to dot and T s to cross until the mess resembles poetry. Read yourself between pages. Learn to speak heart. sugarcane is sweetest at its joint if a child washes his hands, he may eat with kings it takes a village to raise a child wood already touched by f ire is not hard to set alight a wise man who knows proverbs can reconcile all difficulties it is better to walk than curse the road medicine left in the bottle can't help laugh at the end an axe does not cut down a tree by itself GROW if you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing no one can uproot the tree which God has planted where you will sit when you are old shows where you stood in youth when you stand with the blessings of your mother and God, it matters not who stands against you dube ñinilaa ni fitiroo benta the searcher for the shade will make the dusk other people's wisdom prevents the king from being called a fool rising early makes the road short around a flowering tree there are many insects Somebody Give This Heart a Pen Try it all at home. Try it at school At university In the office On the corner of the street that your father lives on, you never visit. Beneath your lover's window next to the years you left there. In the shower to your song Inside the rain Under the sun Inside the night Between the days Try to find space to hear what your heart says Make it your best friend Slow down and clock back into yourself Give your heart a pen. Picking a Name Ignore those scared by your potential Those who snigger while you figure your path Ignore when they try to bring out the past in you What matters is not what you are called But what you answer to. Rise to You With every tomorrow and next time and one day and soon come the sun grows tired of our waiting, our excuses and entitled patience, our confidence in the second chance that forever holds us from taking one. What if one day the night never comes and the sun holds the sky hostage and acted-upon aspirations are the price to pay for night to ever come again? How many twenty-fours would it take to give action to these ideas? Pump action into you whether it's making that call or making that plan the sun shines brightest on those who stand. Excerpted from Somebody Give This Heart a Pen by Sophia Thakur All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
