Pieces and Shreds
This day I dread,
has come,
It has passed,
I’m still in me
I did not wither nor reach for the lever,
to pull myself back nor wish to turn back time
This day I did not dread deeper than the last
or same,
much less
Unburdened
This day drew a smile and I dreamt of the improbability of existing,
Within dimensions I bear witness to
I could not have met you
or you,
Loved you because
This day would not have come.
Doors carry the burden of memory,
every twist and glide has a story,
That sliding glass holds many.
The night uncle Ali walked in thinking it open,
Ran his head and the kids sparked in devious cheers.
Or when my sisters were made to repeat a class,
They too were locked in
Unlike their exams,
That cane didn’t fail.
Time has dissipated and so have the doors,
Though a figment of a past,
Memories replace sight,
in contempt with that which holds no stories.
There’s solace
in never again
Once a life lived
But twice
It won’t ring
There’s no porter at the end the line
To indulge sympathies
Once
We’ve been true
The next second
a Truth was outlived
we don’t live here no more
Like a moving target board
These days are riddled with speckles of heartbreak,
a year’s worth spread across the expanse of time
No fathers dying,
no mothers killed,
So it doesn’t weigh a ton
Sometimes light as dew
It is a flight missed,
a rejection letter,
Unrequited love that never left port,
never uttered
The little big things that don’t break,
Sipped one spoonful a night,
Some days
Withers at bay,
Then weeks more
It abuses disruption,
And dares its presence
Just cheers and rainbows sky high on the noons it wets grass
Infrequent,
It rejects permanence
No gaping holes and no trunks for Alice to slide in through
Just a day as unremarkable
No questions
No black holes, nor a cure for Alzheimer’s,
no parts of our lives we can’t touch, kiss or listen to.
I’m the devil’s spawn, say it.
I spewed lava and laced it with ash, so its tainted red remained hidden from virtuous eyes.
I’m the devil’s spawn, say it.
I steered the boiling pot till it spilled and consumed the soles we had lifted to tilt.
I’m the devil’s spawn, say it.
I sealed the inhales of mischief so you couldn’t taste the stench of wreckage though you could see.
I’m the devil’s spawn, say it.
I lined still a domino of wooden matches and as I stepped out of the coven, I set lit its tail end.
I’m the devil’s spawn, say it.
Tungsten sheathed skin
Impenetrable by vilest of verses
The compliments rage on
That you didn’t break when their thunders fired you
When they cursed, licked their index and dug it into the soil
you didn’t shed your scales
or retreat into the burning cave of your insides
that you stood on the words that drew spikes to your jugular
a character trait they said, the kind ones, that they admired
Because you will always be that bristlecone and that Phoenix,
In amusement, they disremember an innate humanity
Sparing you bits of consideration they otherwise confer those with flesh for skin
Muddied and bloodied
all for a ruse
That the world refuses to trace a beating heart does not mean it ceases to exist
But for their lack of configuration to know the matching codes,
buttons to press to hear the loud screams of angst,
The maps of hidden trails that bore secrets within
To know the weakness pervasive in every footprint to ever graze these isles
There’s a box that lies in our cores
Right beside the keep of emotion and blood flow
It harbours a film unrolled, replayed in interrupted cycles
The secrets that shred all we’re made of
And resounds shrieking fear through our membranes
What it conceals frightens, it tears apart a wholeness for it reveals a snippet
a glance into a length stretched,
In time
Of how far we could go
If unchained
The atrocities we bear inside of us
Of the pain we could unleash
And atrocities our hands could weave
If unbridled
As a loose saddle on a fuming stallion
This box
It preserves the horrors of our mortality
Of our responses
Crafted out of moments
And percept that draws itself
To give meaning or extract from piles of recollection
This box
Sealed
Barred as a mockingbird caged
Its song muttered
a symphony confined within bars of its entrapment
a song out of tune, a sour melancholy
Muted in mercy to conserve our humanity
The spring stills and rushes about,
Gushing through thick strands of bamboos,
Glistened spikes protrude to roots,
Dashing a dime there till it darkens,
And the squeals of lone birds land one after the other,
To seek shelter in tranquil mazes,
In the mercy of this eventide,
Where fear pierces those that crave comfort,
Their disdain keeps them housed in warmth, of a certainty
And others, seek light so they rummage through the darkest of places
In spirit, they affirm the long walk in the fading noise,
Faced and defaced by a dawning they yearn.
A spark, a torch, a fire to burn and be burnt.
Scale the scabs and run right back into it.
That spark.
In fright
That what once was may never be,
Never see the light protrude from the depths that be.
That a hollow ghoul once lived here,
Perhaps it is storming back again.
That empathy never found home in this shell,
That an absence of fear mirrored a world that once cared,
That chaos was but a recipe of enticement,
Not an oath to crash down the surfaces that remained uneven for a time.
That a comfort manifested in the anarchies that swept as far as the eyes could see,
And the histories they penned and imprinted,
In dried leaves and unsheltered tree barks.
That the thirst to unearth the why’s of being and beings,
Only manifested reason for why uneven surfaces remained,
For things to remain dishevelled,
To uphold the pillars that lied crooked.
Perhaps light never pierced this room,
That only a fire burnt the blinding,
And this mirror stares back,
And it is barren.
I learnt from Kahlil Gibran, On Love, that “love is sufficient unto love”, That love is a spectrum of many colours that when those different shades converge, they reproduce their alliance in hue. And that’s a little like love.
That those intimate reflexes one gets when their ears are sealed off with sweet offerings, in tones and letters, in glances and melody, the rallying giggles that upsets one’s stomach for a split second. That sensation, that is only but a strand in a field of growing seedlings, one strand of follicular growths. Just one expression in a diverging pool of action and responses.
That love, it is understanding, it is meaningful ability to challenge and settle difference, it is open and open minded. It is unrestrictive and unchained. It doesn’t motivate a taming, it carries like the wind, the journeyed flight of autumnal sweet-gum leaves. It does not manifest in a tinge that is jealousy, which we accept as positive socialisation. Rather, it trusts, it misses, and yearns for unguarded and uncapped presence locked in as braided fingers, loosened in time to let life breathe.
And when it suffocates, trigger and evoke negative responses to slights, then it may be turning. Contaminated by that which makes us human in our fragility, of which taints our being. This does not mean a complete souring of its founding pillars. Love, it begs for vigilance and constant introspection. So that when it begins to sour as turned wine at sea bay, those negative provocations are tendered and pulled back from the edge of the ledge, cured of effervescence.
Love, it makes mistakes. Natural mistakes in speech and angst but it does not scratch the thighs of another. It does not assume that pretence. Love forgives lesser sins, of speech and angst, in forgetting and delayed remembrance. Love is not vicious, rather it strips life of malevolent cells. Love cures a natural inclination to be spiteful and baleful.
Love betters, Love is empathic. Not only to those who tend sweet offerings in one’s gut but outwards, beyond raised bars and gated communities, beyond border lines birds can’t see, beyond seas that split nations apart, beyond distinct tribal marks and skin tones, beyond differing receivers of our supplications and compasses we prostrate to, beyond the garbs we throw on our backs and the slides we coaster on.
In its all encompassing, it is sufficient. In its deficiency, it depresses.
Himyarite 