Rohan
Rohan is a spoken word artist and poet performing under the name Mstr Samuel.
His mum Lucia died in 2005.
“Inspiration is a funny thing. It’s a force, and we’re just vessels for it. When it flows through me, I have to write it down.
If you don’t use your medium to translate that inspiration into a language you understand, it will go to another vessel because you’re not ready to carry it yet. I really believe that.
Sometimes we’re not ready. But when you are, you’re going to create something that’s purposeful and meaningful.
I have a poem that begins “The average person takes 2,496,235 footsteps a year.”
But how many are purposeful? How many are meaningful?
Writing is a healing process. It’s like taking the thoughts and making it tangible for your understanding.
I feel like, if you can touch a thought then you’ve activated more senses to understand that thought.
If it’s floating around in your headspace, it’s like a butterfly. You don’t see it, then you do. Then it’s gone again.
But if you hold onto it, you can really see it - the bright colours, the hair on its body - you can feel it.
You can stroke the words. They become more, as opposed to just an ideology.
I’m not afraid of death or anything like that. I’ve seen a lot of death in my life.
Still, I really wanted to save her and I couldn’t. I felt like I’d let her and everyone else down. Cancer is cancer, it’s a disease, but I looked at it like a battlefield.
There are a lot of black holes in my memory. I was in full survival mode. I’d go to school, I’d come home, make food, watch TV, fall asleep on the sofa, sleep in my mum’s bed, wake up, shower, start all over again.
“Writing is a healing process.
It’s like taking the thoughts and making it tangible for your understanding.”
My uncle lived with me for two years. He wasn’t a bad person but he was an alcoholic. Then my brother had all this debt and he stole my chequebook to pay it off.
One day I’m sitting in the student union bar. Bearing in mind I haven’t seen my dad or spoken to him in years, I got a phone call from him.
Very blasé. “Oh, you can’t come back tonight because the bailiffs have taken the home. Find a place to stay.” I slept on a bench in Thornton Heath for two weeks.
I refused for 15 years to take therapy - I’m not a crazy person. Everyone was telling me. Then I had a conversation with my sister and she was like “Bro, the pills aren’t working, give it a go.”
First three sessions, I sat in silence battling my ego and survival instincts. In the fourth session, I started to open up. In the final session she told me, "Try writing down your feelings and see where it goes."
I started writing and writing. Nothing anyone but me could understand. Then I wrote a poem. My friend, an English teacher, read it and said, "You need to perform this."
That’s where my poetry journey began.
The stage is my safe space.
I want you to absorb the words and feelings and be inspired. I want to inspire as many people as I can before I leave this world.
You might never see me, but you’ve heard my words. You’ve taken a piece of me and I’m fine with that.
You don’t know how many people you might inspire. It could just be one person. They might be inspired on the spot, or it might be years. I always tell people, I’m here for the long run.
People say ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.’
It’s like, words, they touch. Words can kill. But words can elevate as well as keep you sunken. ”