Five

After attending a couple of workshops, I wanted to write a piece that incorporated the elements that I have learned and present a 'homework' piece as a tribute to my heroes in poetry. As this month is Mental Health Awareness Month, Breast Cancer Awareness Month and recently Day of The Girl, I had those themes in mind for this piece. Pending is a tribute piece to the late Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, for now, this is what I can muster out in the mean time.

Special thanks to Umar Abdul Azizi from Makhluk Seni for the impromptu accompaniment using the 'Seruling'. He is wonderful, honest and the punniest person I have ever met, so eager and hardworking in creating spaces for artist to experiment and collaborate. I am humbled to have him do this performance with me at 'If Walls Could Talk' Vol. 40 featuring Pooja Nansi and Crinkle Cut.

This piece is dedicated to:
My mother who has supported me through my battle with Depression and Anxiety
My late grandmother who is in a better place now after fighting pancreatic cancer.
My beautiful and talented cousin who is going through chemo, fighting her war against breast cancer
My WALLS family, all inspiring and passionate about poetry and all things spoken word. Thank you for accepting me and pushing me to get to this place today, I am no where without you
Poets who write through their pain and turn scars into words that make us want to fight another day
Linkin Park whose music has brought me through the roughest and darkest of days
You for being who you are and sharing your life story with me.

FIVE?! FIVE? Five? Five! F i v e...
F - f - f - f o u r
THREE!
Two.....
One.

Do...   Re...   Mi...   Fa...   So...

So as the saying goes cats have nine lives
I would like to think that we have five.

Birth
Where a new page is written,
a full portion handed down
from the ones before us.

Growth
Where we learn and develop,
nurture influences
and build character.

Midlife
Where our personalities show
with the choices that we make,
how we deal with the hand that we are dealt.

Give life
Be it barren, newborns or businesses.
At some point we give life to something,
we invest and give of ourselves
because it is worth giving.

Death
All things must come to an end.

We have five core emotions
Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Rejection.

I have five memories associated with these five.
Five things that have shaped my journey
Five things that gave me reason.

The day my father said he would never be proud of me
The day I discovered God knew me and I found love, hope and faith
The day I found out my grandmother was dying of cancer
The day I said no to medicine and said yes to medicating me
The day I gave my life, my days and my gaze to poetry.

Five titles that shook the world, a Meteora that made a Hybrid Theory Iridescent.


One More Light was put out but it will burn in our hearts for eternity.

At some point in our lives, we have gone through the five phases of grief.

Denial and disbelief that something so real can affect us or our loved ones
Anger at the injustice that life has dished out to us
Bargained and paid a price to improve our quality of life
Depression and stress are very real ghosts that haunts even the best of us
Acceptance is key; to acknowledge the existence of a problem is the start to finding a solution.

Beyond these five rows,
I'm not sure if you can hear me,
like the cries of a person so silent
it is the iceberg hidden beneath the sea of currents
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?

Thank you, to you who are far away, thank you for listening.
For those of you here, thank you for reaching out to me.

Five days...
Five months...
Five years...

We count as each of these go by.
Each moment, a small step
Each day, a small victory
As long as you are moving forward/

It all counts.

Whether you are counting down to the next
round for medications
Or counting up to your next chemo session
Whether you are counting the days you have survived
Or how many years you have been fighting/

It all counts.

In five minutes,
I have invited you into my life.
As calm as a doe I have recited a poem about me, my journey thus far, so let me present to you five bows instead of the customary three.

To greet you as I have welcomed you into my life
To pay respect to you, the walks of life that you came from and the life stories that you carry with you
To pay homage to the warriors who have fought before me,
the ones who remind me that "it is okay to breath in different dialects"
To ask for forgiveness for the offense that I have given, or taken,
because wrongs shouldn't be left in place of what should be right
To submit myself to you, who have humbly listened to me for the 5th time
I have shared this stage with legends and gods of poetry.

Thank you.

- Swit Marie

1330H 4th October 2017
Bahagia HQ




Swit Marie is a 'Jacqueline of all trades' who loves wearing plaid
When words fail, she allows movement and emotion to carry her through
A believer in making dreams come true, s
he would love to collaborate with you
An explorer starting fresh and would only give her best
She stands in the gap and will only call it quits when it's a wrap.

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