Basit.A
I grew up in Toronto as a first-generation Indo East African, Caribbean Muslim in a single-parent household.
I spent most of my childhood bottled up with emotions and feelings I could never express. I was in a deep hole of suicidal thoughts, depression, and constant heartache; over time, my hardship accumulated, and still no way of knowing how to cope with it.
It’s easy for friends and family to be there for you, but it’s hard to articulate your experiences and how it affects you.
I began to watch videos online and discovered spoken word poetry. Every poem I watched unraveled the thoughts in my head and articulated it so well. I had started to use it to cope with the pain; it wasn’t long after till I started writing my own. Since then, I have always used a pen and paper to express my emotions, a lot of the time, we keep our thoughts heavy in our heart as boys and will find ourselves picking up other things to cope.Society has a way of making boys feel like we’re not allowed to be vulnerable or feel emotions. When really, it’s what makes us a man.
4
It took 4 hours for me to come into this world
It took 4 minutes to scar my childhood
It took 4 words for me to lose self-worth
It took 4 seconds to penetrate a blade on to my forearm
It took 4 days for my heart to play hopscotch jumping back and forth between taking my life or suffering
It took 4 seconds to light up a cigarette
It took 4 cigarettes to create an addiction
It took 4 people to leave my life for an addiction of validation and love by any soul
Any souls that won’t walk in when I’m most vulnerable and walk out when I need them the most
From the time I was 4 I would wake up with scars not knowing where they come
throughout my life I’ve had to hide these scars with my sleeve always confused why everyone else didn’t have them
It was the year before I turned 14 when I first willingly created a scar on my left arm and found comfort in the corner of my bed
What they tell you is let’s talk
What they don’t tell you is blink twice if your being held captive by anxiety
Scared because you don’t know whether you’re overthinking or living with a dark cloud over your head waiting for thunder to strike you because you don’t want to live another day pulling up your sleeve hiding scars because you want to open up but you live In fear somebody will close your book after reading you
I read that depression can be cured by taking 4 different pills
What they don’t know is that depression is a lifetime battle between implementing your broken self into a fixed society
It took me 4 years to realize scars will never fade away
It took me forever for me to realize that every scar tells a beautiful story so when your stranded in this fixed society remember you are the writer
Your book has yet to end
and your book will never end until you pass thru chapters and find your happy ending
Birdhouse
When I was a 7 I built a bird house
I used super glue, a hammer and nails
I still used these same supplies in my life today.
I tried super gluing us because I felt like my all wasn’t enough
I feel like my ability to trust has been shattered by a hammer
Anxiety by the corner of my bed biting my nails away, anxious if I can trust another soul again
I am that 7-year-old boy still
This time building a door without a knob so love, trust and worth can never come in
It’s always ended in heartache I cannot fix
I know how to build a lot of things, but this boy will never be able to build his love, trust and worth because when he was a child he was never built to receive any
Rejected by the pretty girl used by the nice one and heartbroken by the trustworthy one
Building a water well of tears and a collection of relationships that were never really relationships
Building an imagination of the shoulder you offered building the image of you still by my side teaching me how to build this bird house