Wednesday, August 14, 2013

These Things Which Are Mine To Keep


(This poem was featured in Afrolemodele.com in March 2013)

Love is


a dis-ease
in the blood
lies dormant
incubates & debilitates
the heart, muscle, nerves
mind,the dis-ease
it longs to roam
it desires to thrive
no cure
for this can be dispensed
by pharmacists and shrinks
yet the suffering
Increases:
longing,desperation, and thirst
Drink: poison
from a lover's mouth
from his lips

Whispered secrets
 -gently, gently-
the merest caress
(lies)
Soft, as a kiss
Sing, my foolishness
my delusion
my melody of weakness
of heart, of body
that craved & pined
for the poverty of your love, true

I was chasing my dragon;
I was mainlining you

Antidote Unknown
they say it is Time
the pain lingers, never lessens
throbs & whines
to an hysterical beat
late in the night
in wakefulness and fatigue
pulses and weeps
sighs, begs, calls
"come back to me"

Missing the pressure
of your love
pressed onto mine
your distance
your absence
in the night
my soul calling to yours
with panicked
cries

alleviate this sickness
kiss me again
as when you loved me before
the way you did back then

Afterward to your ghost
I plead
Just leave me.
Please let me rest.
Go away let me
be among the whispers
of the past
no matter
if they be perceptible
only to me

Here, amidst my treasures,
that I hold deep inside
where that broken love
so long bereft
lives on
in spite of your abandonment

This: my love: my deepest secret

These memories are mine,
these secret lover's oaths
all have been breached
they are fractured, unhealed
in broken disrepair
yet to memory's senses
fresh, still aware
these, too, are mine
they belong to me
to have
to hold
to obey
to cherish and keep

2 comments:

  1. This reminds me so much of that Warsan Shire "For Women Who Are Difficult to Love".

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  2. One of the essays that I wanted to do when I started this blog was some kind of ode to her and her poetry but the words slip away. I feel her but I can't talk about her without sounding like a crazy fangirl groupie. Which I am. So it's cool. I refuse to stop being a fangirl and she don't even need my words :)

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