Ceiling (Old Wounds IV)

White sheet covering my torso
I am laughing
Because I know
Something about Christ
And his love for me
I smile.
I am free.

But I can feel the cracks
The ones I had spent months filling
Split up again
Opening wide
Embracing the pain
I am struggling to cover up

I smile
I look up
Thinking of Christ
His Love.

Perhaps there's salvation for people like me too.

Old Wounds III

Dear Lovers,
Thank you.
I am where I am because of you.
You have been the best teachers I could ask for
Eagerly teaching me what Love is not.

Love loves me.
She waited patiently for 17 years to have me.

Love loves me.
She freed me,
restored my dignity
my faith

Love loves me.

Love loves me.

She loves me.

And for you boy-who-broke-my-heart
Who started it all,
I take back the power I gave you.
You can no longer hurt me
I don't need you to love me
You no longer have any space in my heart
Or mind
I free myself of you.

Thank you for rejecting me.

Old Wounds II

I am on a merry-go-round
Turning and turning and turning
Nothing makes sense
The trees merge with the wind
That rests its hands on my cheeks
The pain in my chest becomes the cold, hard, ground
Turning round and round
It is all a blur.

Strangers
Familiar in their haziness
In their joining with the green and grey
Sit next to me,
Waiting expectantly.
Did they sense I have something to offer?
Were they told I have nothing to lose?

The first re-orients me to grinding
Bum on crotch, wind that waist
Leave no room for dissatisfaction.
The second wanted to hit it with a geek
Said I had become a beauty
(A lie. It was the year I had the worst acne outbreak)
I didn't care for his words.
I cared for his kisses,
for the ups and downs he could offer
to the round and round.

There was the third, the fourth, the fifth

The one who wanted to see me naked

There was fake laughter

And the silliness of youth

There was me

Faceless, 

Nameless,

An object of gratification,

In the round and round

In the green and grey.

Old Wounds I

A 14 year old stole my heart
While we rocked back and forth to
Daddy Owen's brother's music,
His front on my untainted behind
My heart pounding
Breathless, unable to speak,
I try laugh coquettishly
Like the popular girls with big boobs do.
Never had I been so close to a boy
So close that his breath tickled my ear
So close that I could hear the thump-hump of his heart
So close that it only took the slight swish of my arm to touch his.

We swayed a while
Till his hands
Dissatisfied with lying limply by his sides
Grabbed me by the waist
Drew me closer
To the moistness of his breath
To the ticklish feeling of my hair brushing on my neck
To groans and whisperings about beauty
To the uncomfortable button pushing on my butt.

3 or 4 weeks later,
Right after we have finished KCPE,
Right after turning down a suitor,
Right after I have declared my love,
He will rip my heart out
Hand it over to the prettiest girl in our class
And love her instead.

Dishonesty

Writer's block. I wonder whether I should call it that when I don't consider myself a writer. Good writing is something too beautiful, too genius to call my scribbling (and can I call typing scribbling really?) that. Besides, we hardly write stories. We type them now. Does that mean that no one can be called a writer anymore? Should we call them typers or typists now?

Back to what I was saying. I do not believe I am a writer or can be one anymore. I think beautiful reading-worthy work always contains an element of honesty. Writing in a sense is autobiographical, an avenue for the author to leave their mark. I have lost that, that bit of me that is peculiar in my work. I am no longer honest and I don't know if I could possibly be that.

The Sick Rose

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

O Rose thou art sick. 

The invisible worm, 

That flies in the night 

In the howling storm: 

Has found out thy bed 

Of crimson joy: 

And his dark secret love 

Does thy life destroy.

I don't know why but this poem has haunted me since my lecturer brought it to class about a month ago for us to analyze. Maybe it's because my lecturer kept on hinting at what a mischievous lover he used to be when he was at campus. Maybe it's because when we talked about it, we unanimously accepted that the persona was addressing a woman and it was only women who could get destroyed by love. Perhaps it is because I am a woman and my greatest fear is to be destroyed by love. I imagine me, plunging myself into passionate affair, losing my identity and exchanging it for his. I imagine that I forget to hold my own opinions, to think without thinking about what he thinks. I see myself  letting go of my dreams, hopes, and  desires for his. I imagine being silly enough to have sex, then to have sex without protection. I imagine myself pregnant, at a crossroads- should I keep it or abort? I imagine the shame, the hateful words that will come my way. My family is disappointed. My mother, she is contemplating forcing me to marry my lover. She is angry, not at me really, but at fate for letting history repeat itself. I imagine walking into church unsure whether to smile or cry. I see my friends, unsure of what to say. Should they congratulate or condemn me? I see myself alone. Lover does not bear the proof an illicit affair.

I am not silencing you.

But…

But you are.

But you are.

But you are.

But you are.

But you are.

But you are.

BUT YOU ARE.