Author: Ilva Pieterse

My skin still retains the heat of your breath
As you recited Macbeth
Into my hair

It’s not fair
That all I am is the vibration of your words
Against my breast as you confessed
And now your sudden escape from our life is causing dischord

Your side of the bed still remembers your shape
And I can still hear your voice in my pillow
Its coming through the walls, billowing the curtains, relentlessly it calls

The willow in the back has been weeping leaves on the ground
Remembering the sound of you mumbling in your sleep
Or how you used to pray the lord your soul to keep

Nothing wants to grow
Not since you had to go
The change of the season
Is just not enough reason

To exist without your protection
The weathervane has lost direction
Its pointing up at heaven.
The sundial is stuck at a quarter to seven.

And your laughter resounds in the silences between my screams
The volume of you keeps adjusting itself in my dreams

I’ve seen a trace of your ghost on my face
Dulling my complexion
I’ve seen a reflection of you in my tea

The memory of your name hurts my lips
While my fingers struggle coming to grips
With grasping emptiness

You were my country, my planet, my undiscovered star
You were my pain before death, my colour of rain, my smoky midnight bar

You sold my ability to hold any other person close
You’ve put back the worry in my smile
And the wrinkles that were gone for a while
You’ve darkened my skies
Set free my butterflies
And I remain in a cage devoid of my senses
Cradling a souvenir of your lies and pretences

I was the shadow attached to your feet
And whether you’d walk, run or dance
I’d always keep your beat
Its dark in here
And hollow
It’s empty
With no one to follow

You plagiarised
The shape of my eyes
And you took away the taste of your love
From my lips
You even dissolved your fingerprints
From my hips

Can you stop
The never-ending cycle
Of my heart breaking?

Can you cease
This unrelenting chaos
Your absence has been creating?