She spun a cocoon
The colour of a silent moon
Around what remained
Of her lost and un-gained.
She bound bone to bone
Stitched smile to song
And calmly coloured her cries
In the shades of reason gone wrong.
But when she saw
That her loss was a learning curve
And her being
Not a noun, but a verb —
She shed her silken armour
Turned her body to the sun
And remembered the shape of a hug in her arms
In time to embrace her battle undone.
Hold me like a promise;
Break me like a vow.
For today I am as fragile as the secrets of a child,
And as desperate as a dream dressed in dust.
There is another woman living
In the friction
Between your hips and my thighs
Do you think I haven’t seen
The memory of her
Swimming in the moisture of your eyes?
Do you think I haven’t noticed
The sadness
In the lines around your smile?
Do you think I haven’t realised
You’re somewhere else all the while?
Do you think I haven’t measured
The distance between
What you say and what you mean?
You’re not the first to show up here
With a broken dream
Slung over your shoulder
Heavy with things you never told her
How you’re wishing you could hold her
As we’re lying on my bed
I can hear her broken promises
Resounding in your head
I’m tired of being a consolation prize
I’m tired of soothing away silent cries
I’m tired of picking up the pieces
And wasting all my kisses
Wondering why no one misses
….me.
Should I just accept the fact
That she’ll probably want you back
Once she remembers all the things
That are making me fall in love with you?
You and me
We should be poetry
We should be prose
The way our breathing slows
And our hearts beat
Like wings on Bourbon Street.
You and I
We should be together
Birds of a feather
Flying like time.
We always had rhythm, you know
We just never had rhyme.
We committed a crime together
And should’ve served time
Been brought to justice…
But it was just us
Perfect in our alibi.
We may not’ve had rhyme
But at least we had reason
We committed treason together
And should’ve been tried
We should’ve been been true
Me and you
On the corner of Bourbon Street
And Fifth Avenue.
I pull the land on which you live
Closer to where I stand
In one smooth motion
I narrow the ocean
Uniting our shores
Until yours is mine
And mine is yours
No more miles
Between our smiles
Just a sliver of the sea
Like a scar in the sands
Keeps you and me
From holding hands.
Jy was ‘n silwer seisoen
Versier met groen verassings
Ek was natuur se weduwee
Winter-kaal en kleurloos.
Jy kon duidelik sien
My siel was was vas betrap
In ‘n gebreekte grafsteen.
En ek het niks geweet
Van roomys drome, wilger bome
Of die heiligheid van somer reën.
Ek sal nooit vergeet
Hoe, in die sterlig
Jy my naam verander het
Na ‘n gedig.
En in jou vrugbare voetspore
Was ek van voor af gebore
Terwyl jy, in die sonsopkoms van my toekoms
Vir my ‘n sandkasteel bou.
I first saw you in a cloud shaped like a man
And in the wingspan of an eagle
You spun your sky around me
Till I flowered and froze
And so wintersweet and willingly
Became the shape you chose.
I wanted you to grow me
Like a tiger lily
I wanted your hand to fit
In the small of my back
But instead my bones turned black
And I blossomed and burned
When my back was turned.
In your shadow, I was never alone
In your echo, I became a semi-tone
I should’ve flown
Before your eyes caught me
And turned me into stone
I should’ve known
Your aim was to distort me
And leave me on my own
Bittersweet, frostbitten
In your long-forgotten city
The history of our love
Like a mystery, like a dove
Is written in graffiti
Where our harboured street
And the moon’s reflection meet
And I’ll always wonder how
You managed to make me feel so tall
And at the same time
So incredibly small.
I tried to recall the rhyme our bodies made
As we laid under the setting moon
And you hummed the tune
Of an old cartoon
Your whispers made me weak
Your words set me free
Under a star-filled canopy
Love appeared to me
In the shade of a tree
The poetry in our sighs
Could’ve won a Nobel prize
Your three fingers on my thigh
In the form a C chord –
A Grammy award
Our friction wrote a dictionary
You made me feel less ordinary
You were my best
And I still believe your chest
Was made to fit my cheek
But now we don’t even speak
You left before the week
Was over
The four-leafed clover
That I found in my hair
Never warned me it was to be a rebound affair
I was cheated out of luck
In the end it was just
To help you pretend
That the woman you went home to
Hadn’t forgotten how to love you
But in trying to erase
The pain you still had to face
You hurt me instead
Well, you’re still in my head
You’re on my lips, my tongue, my hips
I’ve washed, I’ve scrubbed, I’ve shaved
But I still crave your hands, your smile
You made my life worthwhile
The memory of your breath
Has made me blind
Now all I have is death on my mind
Unabridged
On a bridge
I stare at the cars below
I dare myself to swallow
My pointless expectation
I feel a sense of elation
As my feet leave the foundation
I lift my empty hands to the sky
I’m done asking why
I just wish I could’ve known
A little more about you
It might have helped me live
A life without you
I wanted to love you
But I didn’t know how
Or when or where
To start.
I couldn’t find a space
Between the abrasions on your heart
On which to lay my head.
I tread softly between
The tearing tissue
As you bled.
But I couldn’t find a place
To build my happiness
From your unhappiness.
I tried to find a lily pad
On the surface of that red river
On which to float.
I swam in vain
In search of a smile
On the bottom of that plasma pool.
So I honoured the voice inside my head
I let you go, kissed you and said,
“I wish I’d never met you.”
I caressed you one last time
To separate your pain from mine.
I don’t even think you noticed
Me skipping down the street
And how I left that heap of despair
On the floor
Between your feet.
I didn’t mean
To weep into your tea
I just wanted a piece of me
Inside you
I not quite sure why
I cried into your stir-fry
Maybe it was dry
And needed salt
It’s not my fault
I didn’t mean to wail
Into your ice-cream
And share my dreams
With a frozen milk dessert
But do you know
How much hurts
Everytime I think if Key Lime pie?
And how you said goodbye
Between bites
Its not right
But I can’t untie
Your noose from around my neck
And god knows I’ve tried
Not to think
About having anything to drink
I’ve tried to go off food
But it doesn’t do me any good
You made me feel less ordinary
Your caresses were legendary
You were the cherry
On top of my Sundae
But I guess I always knew
You’d leave someday
Its true – I always bite off
More than I can chew
I choose you
To be the casserole
Of my soul
I wanna take our lovin’
And stick it in the oven
And turn it up to 220 degrees
Cover it in cheese
And let it bake
I want it to get stuck between you teeth
Show up as a chocolate beneath
You pillow
And watch you grow
Kilo by kilo