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The Other Me

For every woman who carries a secret in the deepest corner of her heart.

“You only live once…but if you do it right once is enough”…or is it? It’s midnight and I am sitting in my favourite chair in front of the fire place…a second glass of Merlot slowly romancing my mood as a bouquet of soft berries flirt with my tongue…the words of Mae West echoing over and over in my mind…You only live once…and with that the unspoken truth I had dare not admit to myself until recently…you love only once.
And as acknowledgement finally makes way for acceptance I look back on years of building a white picket fence marriage all the while longing for a man I did not know but to whom I was somehow connected…unknowingly caught in a web that time had spun…slowly and ever so delicately placing us on separate journeys and as the years passed by would sling shot us into each other’s path …never quite understanding the pull of gravity until finally we had reached the right place at the right time.
As I stare deeper and deeper into the flames I go back twenty six years …to 1985 and the school dance…and as the veil of fogginess slowly subsides …I see the 15 year old brunette with the hazel eyes …dancing with a boy…unconsciously moving to a rhythm not dictated by music…but by a passion that in its infancy would consume and destroy if destiny had not set its plan in place.
And destiny that night had turned out to be a red necked teacher with quite a bit of a temper and reputation for being difficult and most certainly not to be crossed. Keeping an eye on the activities it seemed to him the teenage boy and girl still intimately swaying together after several dances had no regard for the acceptable space allowed between partners as the rules required and even less regard for the boy’s long-time recognised steady but now suddenly abandoned and fuming girlfriend standing waiting in the wings.
Letting go of the emotions and desire that the boy had stirred in me I watched as he reluctantly pulled away from me and made his way to the other side of the room where trouble was waiting to greet him. The look on his face suggesting that he feared nothing and regretted even less. And in that moment I saw his spirit…I saw a fire that would burn my soul and it scared me. Never one to fit in with social norms, I sought comfort in the knowledge that I was seen as being different and by that meaning that I was not really his type…too snobbish by his standards…which again seem to be destiny changing course.
As the days turned into weeks and weeks tuned into months with not a word spoken about that night the boy would pass me in the hallways…and while not staring at him directly I was always aware of his blue eyes burning on me. But I kept my distance and so did he and when he arrived at my house one night with a group of friends I was more than just a little surprised. And although the night was filled with promise we both seem to not have the courage to approach each other and follow up on whatever unfinished business we had from our previous encounter. And as I closed my eyes that night I told myself it was simply not meant to be and that I should close the chapter and move on.
Paracelsus wrote…“Time is a brisk wind, for each hour it brings something new, but who can understand and measure its sharp breath, its mystery and its design”. And by some design of fate I ran into the boy a few years later in a convenience store just around the corner from my house. I say design of fate because I had left my home town many years before and was now living in another town 1500 km away. And there he stood, no longer a boy but a very attractive man. I cannot recall the conversation, thinking about it now I probably stumbled over my words. But what I do remember is that he still had the same affect on me and I could not shake the feeling that somehow we still had unresolved business between us. But I was married and so was he and we were both building a life, committed to the choices we had made that had shaped our now twenty-something day to day existence. And again I walked away from him, not allowing myself to think what if.
But fate it seemed had other plans and on a Wednesday morning I received a phone call that would ignite the flame I thought I had extinguished many years ago. Twenty years had passed since I had left school and it was time for the class of ’86 to reunite. I accepted the invitation with a great amount of fear and anticipation…my thoughts immediately fixated on the boy whose blue eyes I still seem to feel burning on me. A boy who’s face had haunted me for years even though I have crushed the memory of him time and time again. But fate was holding the cards and did not quite like the hand I was dealt for a few weeks before the reunion destiny decided to put a wild card in play. And so the boy made his presence know by sending me an email.
I remember reading the content over and over again looking for hidden meaning between the lines. We were both searching for that certain something that had connected us so many years ago…and in an instant the lines seem to be blurred for we had not an inkling of an understanding what had been rekindled and the magnitude of what was to come. And although the exchange of emails between us was mostly catching up on what we have achieved with our lives, it was also filled with what was not said…filled with unanswered questions and unspoken longing. Being thirty something adults now one would think that it would be easier to behave as such…that experience would bring maturity and with that fulfilment in our relationships. But we were being held captive by a time in our life that would constantly remind us that something was missing. And as the reunion drew closer, I found myself building up an expectation to finally be able to deal with the significance the boy had in my life. I was completely convinced that the infatuation I had felt for him would finally be put to bed once we stood face to face. I was wrong.
Staring into space I found myself sitting in a rented car outside the venue of the reunion. Not quite myself, my mind had been occupied for most of the flight to such a degree that my husband had given up trying to make conversation. I had purposefully refrained from any exchange regarding the event that no doubt in his mind must have posed some questions about old flames. And now I was there and uncertain of what the evening would reveal. Getting out of the car I suddenly wondered if I had made the right decision to come because if I was honest with myself, I had everything, I had success, I had a beautiful family…I had a loving husband. And with that I felt anticipation make way for guilt as I walked down the pathway to the entrance of the venue. It did not take long before I noticed his presence. The boy was even more of a man now…his appearance more rugged, the lines on his face had deepened…he had aged well like a good red wine.
There is a quote by Peter McWilliams that says “Guilt is anger directed at ourselves’. And never was it truer for me than that night. I had successfully averted any physical contact with the boy and a few sideways glances indicated to me that he was completely immerged in conversation with the boys which if one is already predisposed to feeling guilty would suffice as proof that whatever expectations I may have had was utterly foolish. Feeling completely out of place and out of touch I left that evening, driving along the coastline. Overwhelmed by a sense of loss I cried for something I had longed for for such a long time, something I never had although I never even understood what it was. And as I rolled down the window and smelled the salty breeze I told myself that it was time for closure…that it was clear that whatever unresolved feelings there may have been would remain unsaid and that I should close the chapter on the boy…but more importantly on a time in my life that now belonged to the past. You cannot change what you do not acknowledge and admitting the truth was hard. The foolish trip down memory lane was nothing more than an attempt to try and rekindle my lost youth. And so I made a decision not to entertain any more emails from the boy. Complex things are easy to do, its simplicity that is the real challenge. The simplest thing was to walk way but not without allowing myself a moment to embrace the memory of seeing him again that night and I am reminded about a line in one of my favourite movies “The Bridges of Madison County”…” The old dreams were good dreams, they didn’t work out but I am glad I had them”…
But fate was still holding the wild card…in fact this time destiny had joined the game and they seem to be on the same side. Five years had passed since the reunion. Convinced that I had it all life was good. It wasn’t perfect…but whose life is right?
Completely now settled in to suburbia with all the other forty something friends and acquaintances I was surfing the wave of whatever flavour was going down…three years ago it was big screen TV’s and surround sound…two years ago it was Blue Ray…a year ago it was the latest Sony compact digital camera. And now it was Blackberry. It had become my favourite past time to connect with friends and family. So much so that I would often neglect accessing messages that would from time to time still come through on my other old phone…to such a degree that if the battery ran out I would not notice and leave the old phone lying in my handbag for weeks. I reasoned that all of my important contacts had my new number so there was no significance in keeping the old. But the contract had not quite expired and it would be stupid not to use the airtime and free sms’s that was still available.
It had been a long and hectic day. I was glad to finally sit in my favourite chair in front of the fire place. Closing my eyes for a few minutes I tried to leave the office behind. Timing is everything. Just as I was starting to relax, my son the opportunist presented me with a glass of my favourite red wine and immediately dove right into the pressing matter at hand. His phone had broken and it would be the end of his world as such if he could not be in contact with his girlfriend. Did I say timing is everything? The things we do for love. And in that moment of weakness I reached for my handbag to hand over my old phone in the final act of moving on and to be honest to get a bit of peace and quiet that would follow getting him off my back.
But it was not time for peace and quiet… it was not time for anything…..and yet it was time.
Staring at the phone in my hand I decided to clean out the emails and messages before handing it over to junior. Scrolling through the messages I suddenly felt a jolt through my heart. There it was…little more than a day old…the boy had left a message…
Up until that moment I had lived in a world of choice… I had regarded my life as a product of my own decisions and I was in control. But this was something else, this was destiny. And if you believe in destiny, you suspect there are greater forces defining your life’s story. Even if we are each part of some great master plan, our unique journey has more personal meaning when we choose it for ourselves. You make many choices every day. Whenever possible you choose the life you want. We are the choices we make… And in that moment I made the most selfish choice of all. I chose him.
Love will never obey an expectation; its mystery is pure and absolute. Twenty six years later I find myself waiting at a secluded table in a restaurant…nervously anticipating the moment the boy would appear. It had been five years since the reunion however it seemed like eternity. And as a million thoughts were racing through my head…I perched myself from the chair towards the entrance…and there he was walking towards me. I trembled for a second and fell back in my chair. The emotion of fear often works overtime. Even when there is no immediate threat, our body may remain tight and on guard, our mind narrowed to focus on what might go wrong. When this happens, fear is no longer functioning to secure our survival. We are caught in the trance of fear and our moment-to-moment experience becomes bound in reactivity. We spend our time and energy defending our life rather than living it fully.
Realising that we both got caught trying to catch a glimpse of each other suddenly made me smile. And with that I stood out of my chair and walked towards him…no longer afraid or holding back anything I greeted him with a kiss on the lips, not wanting to let go of his warm embrace.
My heart was pounding wildly. He was seated across the table from me and as I looked at him, I could not help but feel that I have known him all my life. It was not anything specific that he said or did, yet it was everything about him…it was just a sense of knowing. It was in the easy conversation that just seemed to keep on flowing… it was in the way he held his glass… it was in the way his eyes would search mine and we both would seem to be hanging on to the same thought…26 years to get to this moment…
The man sitting across from me was no longer the boy I had idolised…not only had he become a man…he had become the man that I had dreamt of all my life. And it is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts. He was the one. My heart only ever had one thought. One want. One need. Despite all, in spite of all…all my heart ever wanted was him.
Most people can look back over the years and identify a time and place at which their lives changed significantly. Whether by accident or design, these are the moments when, because of a readiness within us and collaboration with events occurring around us, we are forced to seriously reappraise ourselves and the conditions under which we live and to make certain choices that will affect the rest of our lives. That moment was defined when he stood up and sat next to me. Fully aware of his presence so intimately close to me I was amazed at how comfortable we seem to be with each other…our bodies now touching ever so slightly, his leg brushing against mine. It came naturally and it felt familiar..it felt right…
The heart never forgets, never gives up, the territory marked off for those who came before. And when he suddenly leaned forward mid sentence and parted my lips fate and destiny had concluded our twenty six year journey. It seems that all we have ever done in our life was make our way to each other…for in that kiss we had found our destination…we had found one another. I realised that till that moment I wasn’t alive’…that I had longed for him like the moon pulls the tide. And like Meryl Streep in the Bridges of Madison County in that moment everything I knew to be true about myself up until then was gone. I was acting like another woman, yet I was more myself than ever before. This kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime.
“You are, and always have been, my dream”…his every word folding like a blanket around my soul. He is every reason, every hope, and every longing I have ever had. My restless soul has found its harbour.
And herein lies the irony for as much as we have found each other and are bound together in another space and time, we will forever remain separated in this life. Vows made to a loving wife and devoted husband are printed like headers and footers on every page of the remaining chapters of your life. You cannot simply change the storyline of the book, or the title. Commitment negates you finish the story you had started though it may not have the happy ending you had wanted.
I have had one life but I have lived it as two completely different women. I have existed in two separate universes. Like night and day I am dusk and dawn, forever floating between darkness and light.
In the light of day my defences are up, my life is a series of controlled actions and purpose. I am safe. But as night falls, like a hungry predator he haunts me and I surrender my soul to be devoured by the darkness where he lives. I call his name and he answers with a flutter in the deepest core of my being. His name is written on my soul and no matter how I try, I can’t erase it.
In the darkness of night there is no escape. There is no distinction between reality and fantasy, I taste him. I drown in him. And as the light of morning falls he exits my dreams like a dagger ripping through flesh and swallow the silent screams of his brutal torture.
And as the morning breaks I cling to hope and sanity like the last remaining life jacket on the Titanic, knowing that just like Rose never let go of Jack, so I will too never let go of him. I shall for eternity run to that place in in my dreams and nightmares where he waits for me.

My Death

The chains rattle amusingly as I desperately try to free myself. Fear creeps up and down my spine. I look up from the cement straight into the thousands of familiar eyes. The different shades of green, brown, grey and blue burn into my skull, all of them filled with hatred and judgment. I pull harder at the thick chains and I can feel them cutting into my sore wrists. Over and over, I try to escape the angry chains, but their grip on my wrists never loosens. I fall hopelessly down to my knees and cover my eyes in shame. Tears stain my cheeks and I can feel the disgust of the audience folding around me, covering every part of me like a heavy blanket. Their whispers are barely audible.
“It is her fault.”
“She deserves what she is about to get.”
“No punishment is enough justice for what she did.”

I hear his footsteps coming closer and stopping right in front of me. I remove my hands from my tear-stained face and look into his cold dark eyes. He grabs my forearms and yanks me up from the ground onto my feet. My entire body starts to shake under his judgmental eyes. He spits in my face and let me go so suddenly that I almost fall back down, but I manage to maintain my balance. I swiftly rub the wet fluid off of my face. From his pocket he pulls a large knife that eagerly glistens in the light of the full moon. Silence fills the air and everyone, including me, is staring at the proud knife.

In one split second I feel the knife sliding into the soft flesh right above my heart. Shock races through my body and leaves me momentarily numb to the inexplicable pain. The knife twists and cuts a neat round circle around my heart. The pain comes through and I scream. I grab the place where the knife was. Blood crawls through my fingers and flows down the length of my body to the ground. My hands fall to my sides. I briefly notice the audience is still deathly silent. I stare into his eyes. His big hand reaches for my chest and his fingers glides into the open cuts. They reach my heart and rip it out of my chest. I look at the beating heart in his hand. It is still alive. My hands reach for my chest once again and feel the big empty hole. Suddenly the crowd starts to go wild. I hear the thousands of familiar laughter and the deafening applause.

My legs give in and I fall to my knees into the pool of blood. The red fluid spatters all over my body. He throws my heart on the floor in front of me. It is still beating. It still has not died. The smell of gasoline fills the air as he pours it onto my poor heart. I try desperately to contain my tears, but it escapes and drips into my blood. The end of his newly lit cigarette glows teasingly at me. His two fingers open and it falls willingly onto the soaked beating heart. A blue flame rises so high and quickly that I fall backwards. I stare at the scene in front of me, whilst the fire eagerly eats at my heart. Its beat fades until it completely disappears. I stare at it until it is only a pile of ashes staring back at me.. The audience comes into hearing again, still happily applauding this horrifying event. He kneels down in front of me. His hand lifts the blood-stained knife and slides it across my neck. I can feel my neck getting wet and I look up one last time. I look straight into my father’s eyes, burning with pleasure and satisfaction. Surrounded by smiles, I feel the life leaving my body and darkness devours me.

Freedom

Freedom for me is, being who I truly am beyond the limits of body, space and time, that traps our souls in beliefs, opinions, judgement and fear. Freedom is being free of that disorientated mind… A mind that takes us away from heart and soul, instead clouds a being of magnificence which we fear to explore and expose to the universe, due to our insecurities, holding onto past experiences that hurt and wound us within, not forgiving and only expecting a new result repeating a cycle we have never dared to step up and out of.

However once we realize fear can be a friend and it is ok to forgive, as well as take a step forward beyond our limits or comfort zones, we are privledged to experience a state of freedom that defines a peace that is filled with a love that overflows into our surrounding environments. An experience of love that is unconditional and creates an atmosphere which fills the world with an ecstasy which never dies.
A love that is not necessarily physical bound to body, space and time however spiritual free, infinite and timeless.

True freedom is letting go of beliefs and behaviors of how one thinks it should be into how it actually is in the moment. Using that negative energy we create a positive result with a shift in consciousness, a transformational shift that changes ones thoughts to instead align ones self to being their true ‘real self’.

So do yourself a favour and choose to let go and just go with the flow, that is already present in the now. Trust and have faith instead of fear and embrace the present moment of now being open to experience a sense of stillness without fear, judgement or the need to justify every moment. Live with aliveness focused on a vision instead of dying to survive in a world in which one cannot truly escape without going beyond all limitations.

Freedom is truly Nothing…

NO-THING, a infinte space you allow yourself to loose control in that is open, vast and empty. We fear our deepest selves because it creates a loneliness no thing can truly and honestly occupy, it is an empty spaces with no label or definition, without a definition, it makes it hard for our minds to grasp however only our magnificence of soul can understand. It is a language spoken and heard in silence within an infinite hollowness.

It is the beauty of this hollow emptiness which is freedom….

Dear Ex

So I thought this would help me move on or start afresh while making amends for anything and everything that may have gone wrong. Don’t even know where to start… HOW HAVE I BEEN?
LET’S SEE… …
I guess with all the revelations that have come to light to date, the fact that I was a fool is not really debateable, from the beginning I was never thee one for you. I was just filling in the gaps which is something I would have never optioned to be a part of, no self-righteous person would ever want to come second to anyone let alone another woman.
Cannot really blame everything on you from the get go I allowed my naivety to take control and let myself forgive you while blindly convincing myself that it’d all be worthwhile in the long run. I put aside my lack of investment in any relationship and went all in just so to prove myself wrong. Only if I had known, hey?
I am not transferring my burdens and faults to you but you were reckless not only with your own life but with mines and anyone else’s you may have been involved with and for that I do hold some resentment towards you because no matter how shitty you made me feel I trusted you.
Nothing annoys me more than your inability to talk to me, your transgressions and issues that may influence us in the long run are made public before I know of them. I am forever expected to get angry and then get over it like a good girl, but sadly I have never allowed anger to parade within me cause I just won’t let it consume me therefore I just hope for a more “grown you.”
Thanks to your actions I found myself going through a time of resentment, pain and self-hatred while lacking the very thing you promised me, which was ‘you.’ You promised to love me, you promised to be there but I guess I was just grasping at straws believing you. I hated you with every fibre within me and all I ever thought about was ending myself just so the pain would be no more, I had lost all hope maybe it was the hormones or the you deserting me but nothing made sense, therefore you cannot blame me for not trusting you.
The tears I cried were endless but you couldn’t care less as long as my nagging self was out of your way and I got the message loud and clear, I tried Lord knows I tried to let go but every time I had made amends and accepted the situation you would waltz in giving me hope of something better. I am not saying that you reasons for disappearing were never good enough but looking at the situation they were just pathetic, you had a child which you had never laid your eyes on. I knew there was someone else but even though I wasn’t good enough this innocent soul could not be made accountable for my inadequacies.
The love I had for you haunted me and clouded me with guilt, through all the pain I went through and the things I found out I vowed never to hold a grudge towards you or our significant other and child if need be but here I stand now wondering if I can allow myself to forgive and forget with there being a constant reminder of the fact that I have never been good enough.
On the other hand here you are standing before me asking for forgiveness, a new beginning and in hand you claim to hold love that is untamed. It has been a year since you and I have stood face to face but yet I still find myself weak at the knees, I love you with an unbound amount of emotion but a year has never been enough to forgive being made second best and being kept in the dark of the existence of another child for that I’ll have to forgive me.
It’s weird how I am asking for forgiveness, but I’m sorry for not reacting the way you’ve expected me to do so, forgive my inability to lose my sanity over something that is beyond my control. Just so you understand, I still do refer to you as my ex and not because I am going back on my word but because it’s more of a safety net, not allowing myself to let you in that easily again.
I forgive you for the lies, infidelity, and you being an asshole!!!
Yours truly,
Baby mama

The Deceased Socks

Maybe I should be arrested. Maybe I should not be here reminiscing about my art of killing. I left the scene quietly, no one saw me; no one can point to me. I left her lying there, with only her socks on. Her hair was red, from the blood running from her neck. Her smile, had dried up into a death grin. What is a death grin? Oh well, I am not trying to-.

Maybe I should have taken the socks off too. Oh! What a messy crime scene. Who commits murder and leave the socks on the scene? My mind was scattered everywhere, my heart pounding like athletes on the track. So, what now? Do I go back to take the socks off or do I continue to run away from the scene. Maybe I should make a few calls, ask Nandi to go and remove the socks from the scene. I cannot go back there now. I cannot face my deeds – although perfect, even if I have to say so myself.

I have never felt so free after taking a life of a person like the one I did tonight. I should do it again soon. Maybe this time around remember not to leave the socks behind. Wait, what’s that? Is that a knock at the door? Could it be the police already? Should I open the door or should I leave them knocking? Perhaps it is a guardian angel, coming to drop off the socks. Mh! That would be nice.

Alright, they have left.

Let me switch on the television and see what is on the news. Maybe the socks are talking through the channels.

Oh no! The socks are here.

High Moon: Garden of Eden…Evil

Aiwa’s flying feet lead her towards the silver pool. With the touch of her hand she revealed the perfect picture of her golden body. In all her naked glory she dived beneath the gleaming water, into the loving embrace of death.

Deceived by trust on one moonlight night, faceless was her seduction beneath the high moon in the garden of Eden. The golden touch turned the garden into evil. Her once aching fingers turned into clawing nails digging into his corded muscles.

Faceless was her seduction…one touch…one whisper, an attack now remembered for eternity. High moon…the garden of Eden…Evil

Sephtis

Sephtis is a suicidal super-hero looking for an escape from immortality. With a rough childhood and the pain and resentment he has had to deal with, he has become tired and sees his powers more as a disease than a gift.

When he finally manages to find a way to end his life, he has to compete between the feelings of responsibility he feels for the family he loves and the public protests against his suicide.

Blindfolded

There has been a flood not a conservation of water but everything that the child eats seems to taste like snow dripping like aloe sap. Secrets can be earth-shattering. Humanity is not meant to keep secrets. Secrets can kill. So their bodies flowed with the water and its carcass became two, and there is an obsession that they carry with them to the grave. Hearing voices, even in spirit Di steals. There is potential in its metallic caress but also nausea, paranoia, and insanity. My skin is a wall, a hellish ruin. A home where I do not want to be. The child Felicity cannot wail anymore. She cannot be held in Di’s arms anymore. This happy ending is washed out. The children involved have been brainwashed.

They both met the wolves at the door. Di’s last words must have been, ‘Beg.’ Then again she held no more power over him. James Smith’s addictions will never die and in his poetry there are shades of sirens. But Felicity and Di are also there, ghosts. Time was just pretend. People, women growing older around him while Di and Felicity stayed forever young. Tucked in a filthy grave made of earth both with their beautiful. With their dark exotic hair and foreign air but they are still in a homeless space. Di surfacing a grown up in a maze, an experiment and in the end she has won but in the end where is her speech. Her perspective, her poetry? Everything cannot have been destroyed.

What would she say? If she was still alive today. James Smith said, ‘Heal Di. Your words are practically magic. They give you an identity. At night, future stories will come to you in dreams. You are the only one who can make you feel safe. I divulge all of the world in my poetry.’ When he put his hands on her body and wrote love poems, loose translations naming the abandonment of body parts. Di was both an adored survivor but she loved to wear disguises. And after all the damages were done Smith said, May all their souls rest in peace’. Forgive me Saint Maybe.

What is there left to salvage? She wears a scarf around her neck. One of my own and now Felicity is an Eskimo princess pure through and through. Our foreignness appears less so now. You can be more bold now indiscreet. Now I live like a cloistered nun. Oh I much prefer it that way. I was dying before but I never had the words for it or the strength to say it when pain conquered everything. Now there is no more cold and no more talking. No more waking and aloof indifference. No more stupid winter London sky. Unstable water, pathetic people sitting on the park benches feeding the ducks.

You’re as frozen as the earth we’re covered in. Your atoms are merely biology, plenty scientific but here is where we say our goodbyes. At the opening of the graves. A kiss for a kingdom. Just a taste. A kiss for the dying but, see, it is far too late for that. It’s salt. Don’t ridicule me. Your behaviour has been far from exemplary. Di found herself locked in an embrace. Safe in the dark. Smith was a poet. Di was a poet with shark teeth. A torso stretched out in the local swimming pool. Daily she would begin a water baptism, a ceremony. There is a writer’s diary in water. The body is an earthworm, and like last chances they search for an intersection.

Once upon a time James, Di and their small daughter Felicity were a family. Then dysfunction ruled the day. James dreamt of his work, Felicity’s legacy. Di in her solitary moments was blue as she braided Felicity’s hair, prepared porridge for the breakfast for the three of them. I have to leave a note was all that Di could think of. I have to put my castles in the air in order. Di was the one who stood over the kitchen sink scratching the grease from the pan that James had fried the bacon in with her fingernails. Every landscape is an image. They have delicious photographs of families, of functions, of get-togethers that Di and James and Felicity was not a part of.

You see in the end I was not so tough sweetie on top of the lake. That list, my recipes keep them hold onto them, save them for the keeper. I’m not a complete hard-hearted fool. Just wounded. I know you’ve been about town and made no secret about it. There are pearls of wisdom. This swarm of words from a summer journal. I threw it into the sea.

walking dead

Though his Geography teacher taught him all about how the earth spins, he never thought the world would turn on him through his former classmate. Let us keep us his name in fear of public reprisals–
of which he gets every day. Most of the years he was not working but, things went on well for him. It was after Matric when everybody he knew showed their true colours. Right now, he does not know the distinction between good or evil. Satanists want to change the curriculum that everybody is accustomed to in the name of A SECULAR STATE. Yes, our twenty year old democracy possess all of that in the name of Freedom but, Panyaza Lesufi must tread carefully before we have another SCHOOL ZOMBIE CASE. See, apart from a select few fake preachers, there are true healers who only get called upon when the going gets tough, when another man’s child get most feared influenza deadlier than EBOLA VIRUS, the healers get called upon to come exorcise the travelling demons of THE WALKING DEAD. Back to the true story, many men rise after they have fallen out of favour. Not this one. Thus until he get to know the difference between GOD and THE DEVIL.

Dreaming of Malibu

There is nothing lost in translation when coming home to the mock husband. I am not coping because I am not the doctor. Because I am not the one who is fluent in the doctor’s language no matter how hard I try. How will I be able to benefit from wearing that white laboratory coat, stethoscope around the neck, with that particular bedside manner? Where is my infinite piano? Watch this. Watch this romance. It is clever math, no; it is elegant math with all of its violent alertness under my fingertips. What is the weather like in Los Angeles? What is a winter like in Los Angeles? What will my head say to my heart as I walk on that beach, or breathe in that valid air from that Parisian meadow with my moral compass to navigate me on those open roads, the wide open spaces of the Midwest? What will my limbs say to each other in London if I ever get around to having that London experience forgoing all my responsibilities as a writer and a poet in South Africa? For is not that what I am primarily. A South African writer and poet living in a post-apartheid apocalyptic city. City life as opposed to life in the rural countryside. Searching for greener pastures in the asphalt garden where everything is golden and chameleon-like. I have never wanted the experience of loss. The measure of loss but life has given me that responsibility. Sutures too.

And panic and I have had to thread both against threadbare knuckles. I have covered myself up with an American quilt. It has become my shroud. It has become my cover in other poetry. But I feel it all the time now. The warmth of anxiety. I feel it humming, humming, and humming in my bones. Singing to the leaves on the winter trees. Guests every one. They are like bees. They are a rapturous swarm. What do I know without having a sophisticated culture, a knowledge and education beyond this tidal moon and sun and then I think of the planets. How like the planets I am? I know my place. I know my place so well now that I cannot give it up. And why would I? There will never be a case of mistaken identity. All I will ever know about life is the predictions of Sappho, poetry and writing. And how sometimes how beautifully unpredictable life can be otherwise. There are storms in the dark and we need to speak about the acute pain from those storms in beautiful and wonderful ways. Mostly the image of depression is that of a wild thing. When I am crazy, I know that is when I am most alive. When I am not crazy, when I am most sober is also when I am most alive but I do not know it. All feeling leaves me and I long for the stress of crazy. I long for someone to tell me I am beautiful.

You are mine. The pain of Sarajevo is in my blood. Mingled there in my blood. Staring back at me in my blood and but what can I do but stare back at it? The door was somehow left ajar for me and my heart was bursting. It ready to be split open like a pomegranate. Seeds everywhere like seawater. I found wild oblivion, the safe passage from suffering in those seeds. At first I could not speak of the fantasy that I held in my hands and that my head wished for so ardently. I could not interpret those promised lands that my mocking husband returned from. I needed land and yet I needed to be reborn as well. I needed stress, a tour of the flesh like I needed the back of my hand. I flickered and then I was buried once again amongst the flowers. And with dirt upon my head I soon realised that I was supposed to be the beautiful keeper of the vanished and the unexamined. The apprehended. I do not want to age. To age means to give up your mortality like an artist giving up their brushes. To age means to give up everything. To age means that you are not bold anymore and that you do not have anything to be brave over. It just happens to be in your blood to think these things. Never mind how you try not to. I need to write to you of the quiet courage of our mothers and our grandmothers. So pay attention.

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