Has it ever been possible to be seen for what you really are? Have you wondered time and time again whether your essence ever came through?

Childhood confusion

Knowledge seeping through, sheets of multiplication tables, learning to spell an eleven lettered last name.

A.K.A.N.W.D.A.W.A.N.A.H.O. A.K.A.N.D.W.A.N.A.H.O

Inflexible plans garnered blessing, my maiden name held off the mockery.

Years gone by and egos stroked allowed them to believe that they were better than me

They needed to believe they were better than me, needed to pretend I wasn't just – me

"He fought for me" grandma told us one day

That's it… – God fought for us, for you, for we, for I

Little sense that made then

Combatant teenage years

Found me fatigued with a rebellious armor, ready to fight off the instigators,

Never-ending, misappropriated hurls of abuse hauled,

A belief against us. The fighting kept me going.

In the flicker of a candle lit small space, I saw. I had no cause.

I stopped fighting, drew back my ammunition and lay down arms.

No explanation, prearrangement, rank or order.

We are because He is.

We live because He lives in us.

God did not give us love for no reason, and neither did He choose our kin randomly. Chance is mythical in my world and reality is Love in Christ.

Today, in the early morning of a breezy April, I understand that all things can and will be manipulated.

I am comfortable with me – the one that likes to sit at the back of the bus, sit quietly in turmoil and then run to mama to spill out all the stinging tears of anger, she doesn't judge me, she understands that there is One who fights for us and that our fight isn't with 'them' who make me believe that I am what they see in their eyes.

Consciousness surfaces and I weep, and I laugh.

I weep at the ludicrous reflection that their minds can be swayed so easily, that our lives can be tarnished in the snap of a finger, that wealth and power have destroyed all things loveable about mankind. And yet, I laugh because I know the truth, I see the smiles of purity laced with humility, I see the struggles He's brought us through, I laugh because He laughs with me. I laugh because He fought for me. And I write because He fought to make me His vessel of truth.

My cause is one - Love

Bless!

They say that all things come in their own time

*the system of those sequential relations

that any event has to any other,

as past, present, or future;

indefinite and continuous duration

regarded as that in which events succeed one another.

duration regarded as belonging to the present life

as distinct from the life to come or from eternity;

finite duration.

When is my time?

What do I do until that time?

Who will tell me about that time?

Is this life my time?

Well hello time!

I like you – sometimes

You elude and confuse me – other times

Things are supposed to work out with time

Ever stop and think about the now time?

*definitions from dictionary.com

© Esteri Akandwanaho 2007

I saw him in my dream

He wore a white linen shirt that shone in the bright lights

He held my hand, leading me excitedly to the dance floor

I felt his gentle touch, his calm pulse against my raging mind

His radiant smile inching me closer to a hypnotic euphoria

I rode with him in a cab last night

We gazed out into the darting Paris lights

Blurry as the Seine beneath the bridge

I saw his face

I know his face, I feel his touch, and I love this man

His eyes glistening in the dark

Tickling a comfortable joy in me

I willed him to stay forever

I begged him to leave me never

Madame! Mademoiselle! On est la

I climbed out of the cab and looked behind me

But he was gone