QUIET DESPERATION

By Maggie Gwangwa 

Quiet desperation is the silence between desire and the courage to act.

She gathered the fullness of her dress by the hem,

draped it over her wrist and said “I am done!”

I watched her walk away, and wished that I could do the same

She walked away unapologetically, without guilt or shame

I watched her exposed back arch with confidence

Her shoulder blades looking back like a riot squad

Resolute and strong.

The distance between where I was seated and her march into freedom

Was a languorous indecisiveness between wanting to latch myself onto her arm

And tasting freedom together, and the arresting feeling of a sense of

Responsibilities that would be in peril if I chose to jump ship

I was frozen, bewildered

Doused in bitter herbs

I was in quiet desperation!

I settled into a warm bath of quiet quitting

Lit scented candles, incense and caressed my burnout

The hesitation writhed me into a fetus position

Tethered me to a sack of murky water.

“I am done.”

“I am Done!”

“I AM DONE.”

I uttered the words and my throat burned.

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About Maggie
Maggie is a Lesotho-born, Botswana-based multidisciplinary storyteller, illustrator, and motion designer.  Her day trade is in visual communication and digital design and her love for storytelling started in her early years in childhood.  She is invested in fictional and non-fictional narratives that celebrate African womanhood, inner resilience and wholistic parenting.  Her work, on-screen and off-screen, explore themes of identity, intimacy, Basotho/Batswana heritage, vulnerability and faith.

When her pens is down and designer software are closed, she enjoys casual time with her husband and young son, or journaling in quiet corners.  For Maggie, creativity is a cathartic exercise that relieves the pressure of the unpredictable realities of life.  It is a craft that is to be both admired and esteemed highly.  The mind holds conscious and subconscious ideas to which the artist is but a portal between the realities of the physical and supernatural.  She is entrusted to give meaning and form to the infinity of her ideas, with guide from the muses, and respect for the work which she is but a vessel of.

Her personal ethos: “What is meant to be mine, will find me.”
Current reading list: The Absorbent Mind and The Girl With The Louding Voice