Attempted Travel Writing- Jamaica

It’s been years since I last stepped foot in this country; a fact that’s being exposed by my body as I began to overheat. Sweat pours from my body only to evaporate seconds later.  I look back towards the massive crystalline glass building I had just exited, wondering considering whether I could go back in for a bottle of water. It’s an airport of course I couldn't.

Instead I continue on my trek, breathing the hot air in and out, my mouth becomes as dry as desert sand. The handle of my black and white polka dotted bags seems to dig painfully into my palms as I struggled to keep my footing on the rough gravel flooring beneath me.

 After walking for what felt like miles, I finally saw the civilisation I had left behind as a child; the cramped streets filled with stands upon stands of stalls as boisterous sales men and women shouted out to the busy people bustling around as to gain their attention. Bright colours of clothes/ food and hand-made jewellery distracting me from my thirst, as the rich scent of food that hung in the dry air caused my stomach to growl in excitement. These people were speaking in a language I had not heard for so long. I was being re-educated in my lost culture in that very moment and it was truly overwhelming.

It was Christmas time and yet nothing signified the time of year except the carelessly thrown up green, yellow and red posters detailing the traditional Christmas fair ‘Grand Market’. I was home at last. I was home but I felt like a stranger, like a foreigner just looking in. What was I supposed to do now that I was here? So much was the same but so much had changed as well. I couldn't find my own way home.

 I was looking around myself with the confusing feelings of happiness and fear twisting at my gut when my eyes met with a woman’s. She was stood behind one of the smaller food stalls across from me and as our eyes met she started to move towards me.  She looked about middle aged, her frame was big and her hair knotted in messy dreads that hung past her shoulders, she wore a dirty sky blue apron over what I assumed was a flower patterned frock.

As she stopped in front where I stood in the middle of the busy street, she gave me a massive toothy grin before shouting my name. This confused me and I assume I must have looked it too because she clapped me on the shoulder and laughed. ‘Weh yu a look pan mi suh fa?’ she asked in heavy patois. I didn't know whether to speak it back to her or to just speak in English. I chose English. ‘I don’t think I know you’ I said as loud as my dry throat would let me but she just laughed again ‘Mi know yu and yu mum, mi kan tek yu home lata’ was all she said as she pulled on my arm towards her stall where she shoved a bottle of a Jamaican homemade ginger beer into my hand. I didn't question her and just drank it.

I handed the empty can to her where she chucked it towards a pile of tin cluttered mess in a corner by her stall. A customer came by and I watched as she served them what I remembered to be rice and peas with curried goat on thick polystyrene plates while speaking in patois about the customer’s new hairstyle; a Jamaican style called rope twist that fell to her shoulders like open curtains. That’s how the rest of the day went before I was taken further into the country where I knew my house to be, where I grew up.It wasn’t until the stall keeper who I found out was a family friend named Janet took me to my family home later that day did I find out that a bunch of the people I had seen in town when I had just arrived were our neighbors.

I spent the rest of my time visiting town and all its market stalls and hanging around on different beaches all around the country like Dunns River Falls where it was a river of water falls and the sandy dunes of Negril beach. I even got the chance to go to a field of mango trees hidden within a subtropical dry forest Limestone Hills of the Hellshire Hills in St. Catherine and Portland ridge Clarendon in southern Jamaica. It was so green and eerily quiet with all its sneaky wildlife and hidden shrubs of exotic plants like Rubiaceae and Bignoniaceae with its green tendrils wrapped around everything that comes into contact with it.

It was fantastic. 

Listening

You're by yourself
Both Physically and mentally
But you're still listening

You listen to the music
that pulls at your heart strings
with each second it plays

You listen to your thoughts
as they present you with the
tools that could lead you
to complete and utter destruction
or to your self-worth which you've kept hidden
in the back of your mind

You listen as your tears flow
And your breathing elevates,
Gasping and desperate for air
You try to silence your sobs of distress and pain.

You listen as your captured and held,
nothing left but the suffocating hands of silence,
was it even worth it to struggle?

You wait and listen
As your eyes dry up and the flow of tears subside,
They evaporate,
Nothing left but puffy red eyes and its tracks down your face

You're out of tears
but the threatening pressure behind your eyes
Still there
It threatens to overflow again and still you listen

No matter what you do
You listen
You listen as you fall,
as you break and pull yourself back together
readying for it to happen all over again
Your alone, you hurt, you cry, picking up the pieces
then it repeats
but you still listen , always listening.

Book Recommendations

Maze Runner Seeries by James Dashner

Sleeping Doll by Jeffrey Deaver

Light or Darkness

They say there is always a light at the end of a tunnel
but is that true? 
or are they the words of hopeful cowards?

How are we to know what lies in it if we can not see?

Death, despair, destruction,
that's what awaits the dead,
all of them, 
the old, the young, men, women, even the youngest of children.

They ride into the unknown with this saying,
expecting only good things,
disregarding the endless possibilities of bad.

There is no Light
It is an illusion, a trick,
One that allows fools to fall at the devils mercy.

There is no light,
Only darkness.

Image

It can be a Hobby or a Job

Always write what comes to you.

Tears by Kerisha S

      

Tears are an ambiguous feature of our beings.

It is the essence of our pain and sadness

and yet it is the gift of our joy and happiness.

It is something that can be shed by all,

that has been shed by many

and yet there are some who refuse to allow themselves its release,

seeing it as a moment of utter exposure.

we cry, we weep, we sob,

all for the feelings it provides us;

that sense of of relief, of progression

The tears we cry are not always a weakness or vulnerability.

To allow ourselves to cry

we are giving ourselves permission to become stronger.

Tears are something that allows not only ourselves,
but others around us

to see another part of us,
a part which proves our humanity.

Introduction

Hello, I have to write and post some stories and poems and whatever I write. I want to just write whatever I want; just random stuff and post it.

I'm not really a professional writer, I'm hoping to have success in my creative writing course at college so I'm just going to go for it even if its not any good :)