this fork in the road meets me
take the left or turn to the right
the one less travelled or the one worn down
i'm just glad that the choice is mine
i'm just glad to be standing here
so what if this should be the end?
if i could call on inspiration any time i want
this might not be the end of my journey
if i could wring out all that has been encased deep within my heart
this might not be the demise of my determination
i hope you can see that some day
maybe i have come to the limit of myself
you wanted to see me reach ever higher
but i've already got more
more than what i could have ever wished for
you say this cannot be the end of my time
but this is what i have to say
i've borrowed more than what i've been promised
i've been given a lifetime and two
where all that i've got is more than what i have ever needed
and who is to say that i haven't lived at all
when all that i've ever done is what i wanted
nothing more
and certainly, nothing less

do you still despise your father
because he had another woman,
& left you & your brother for her?
"oh no, now, no one will ever care"

do you still resent your mother
because she turned a blind eye
& collasped with shame when it came to light?
"oh no, I'll be more unyielding than that"

& so it is no small wonder to me
that when you gaze at  yourself
you must see the whore that you are
you still take his money after all.

that sort of self-disgust must be
pretty hard to swallow, digest.
no wonder, you're always hungry & hollow
oh you'll consume anything he pays for

(I, myself, must admit I made the mistake of
finding an abyss inside a void)

but spaces are not always places
aches are not always pains
I loved you once
but I won't ever again

in my father’s car, father driving, my fingers curled as if readying themselves for the wheel.  father small talking, his dark chatter, my hands like jaws left open, horrified before the heads god plans to put them in.  heads not to scale.  heads trial size.  

I worry the heat in my eyes is permanent.  my lids worry as well and retreat.  burn pain is its own person telling me I am long term its most bearable memory.  

the hospital seems a distant campfire lowered by the sleepy laughter of the still beautiful.  my daughter.  who as a girl melted the faces of two action figures with the bulb of a reading lamp not to upset her brothers but so the figures could kiss.  

I begin to make sense all by myself and nod to the dog shaped thing drowsing in the car’s murk just beyond my feet.  politely father asks if he can help and I okay him asking me anything.  he chooses the health of my sons.  one in particular.  I stick to the dog.  to the puppies it ran from no faster

had they been aflame.

It was after the Second Anglo-Boer War. Some of the soldiers went to brothels and taverns and places as such. It reminded them of the vibes in canteens. One soldier named Jokas took the advice of several of his friends and bought a sex worker. He had been disappointed by the fact that his girlfriend married a lawyer. And so Jokas had his fun, this didn't last though for he still had the appetite for commitment.

So he kept returning to the same brothel - buying the same sex worker. In time they developed feelings for each other, writing letters and sending pictures when away to see relatives... but this wouldn't be as Dennis, a friend of his, introduced his cousin to Jokas. She was nice, had a decent job and was ready to settle. Her name was Anna. So Jokas stopped going to the brothel and opted to start a life with Anna, it seemed the sensible thing to do. Jokas moved with Anna, they both went overseas. Valerie was the name of the sex worker he had feelings for, what Jokas didn't know was that Valerie had fallen pregnant. A few years later she got a job at a bistro and lived in a vacant storage room with her son, Warkos. Warkos was raised in a bistro, there he got advice about life, culture and women from drunkards, thieves, policemen, lawyers and loafers. He had little formal education. He grew up resenting life and lacked a sense of belonging. He started being mischievous when he pick-pocketed a rich businessman, when he was only seven years old.

He used getting into trouble as an outlet for his anger and loneliness. His mother didn't keep men whom he could look up to. Although she began spending a lot of time alone and didn't care much about men, since her prostitution days. At age 14 Warkos met a girl with a strange name; Tellaby. Tellaby gave his life purpose at a time when he was suicidal.

She was a pretty, decent and very respectful girl who came from a well-to-do family. Days in the park with her was his escape, it gave him a sense of normality. However he would go back to the real world, back home his mom had been enduring depression and took up smoking. She was stressed by the fact that her boss kept abusing her (emotionally and verbally). Warkos formed a gang at age 16, he recruited a few dysfunctional teens in the neighborhood who spent most of their time loafing and stealing. His dream was to make enough money to buy his mother a house, find his father - so to find function; whatever that meant.

At age 17 Warkos got arrested for drug possession. He spent only 6months in prison as he had a witness who testified that the drugs were planted. The witness was paid by his gang of course. So he served 6 months for assaulting a police officer. All the while Tellaby got herself a boyfriend, he was a functional, smart boy who had a scholarship to study overseas at Oxford University. Tellaby's family approved of the relationship and pressured her to continue seeing him.

When Warkos got out, he heard the news and attempted to stab Tellaby's new boyfriend but was stopped by Tellaby... When Tellaby chose Eric, her new boyfriend, over him it was the end of his heaven and sense of normality. Drugs he found too dangerous and started researching fraud, he met a few intelligent con-men and together they forged cheques. In just one year he had about R500 000 and bought a nice cottage for his mom in the quiet small town of Andbury. This earned him prestigious status and he met with his gang again, had his mother's old boss murdered and took over the business. He ran three brothels and about five bars in three towns. He was only in his mid-twenties when he made his first million. He had a vice, to heal his pain of not feeling loved, and to forget about the pain and the void of not knowing his father he used heroin. Of course prestige comes with a price, there was a mob which was government-owned (secretly of course), it didn't like the growing competition, so when Warkos was 27, he was shot twice in the chest, once in the shoulder. The assassin was not found when the police investigated and he left few, if any, traces. Warkos survived the murder attempt after he was rushed to hospital, the bullets missed the heart but wounded his ribs.

Being housed was no longer safe for him so with his convoy, they moved from city to city, robbing banks and restaurants. At this time his gang earned notorious status. They were dubbed The Notorious Warks by journalists. On one heist he got shot on the arm and leg but this inspired him to earn even more power... A month later he funded a Black Resistance Movement, in papers they wrote about him as, "Warkos the Invincible Horse". Funding this political movement enabled him to expand his power and fight the force that was against him. He provided guns and grenades to a sect within the movement to attack government officials and invade and batter their homes. This moved to hijacking their cars. Soon this sect of guerillas had enough power to do crime in the cities, however they secretly met to be independent and not be under Warkos.

So among them there was an informer who leaked Warkos' whereabouts, he was shot twice in one shoulder but his men took cover and they escaped. Warkos, 29 years old, was getting tired of this violent life, he abandoned his gang and had a lump sum of money sent to his mother. He even investigated the whereabouts of Tellaby and stalked her for a while. He decided to go back where he grew up, he went to the storeroom which he and his mother lived in... In it was a locker; he opened the locker and found a box which had pictures and letters from his father, sent to his mother... In one letter was a poem written to his mother, Valerie, it read:

I have been fooled by ruling men
You believe in honour and glory
but you do not see the Be Lie in "believe"
and now I feel no better than these thieves
I only find comfort in being with you, Valerie.

At that moment he cried and kicked himself for he felt he had been living a shallow life... He thought to himself that his father was a good man and that he probably wouldn't be proud of him...

The next day he did nothing but think and that's when he got shot by Eric. He had been trying to get hold of Valerie as they (Eric and Valerie) were in the country to celebrate Easter... Eric found out and because he despised him with a passion he got word out to the police but the police feared him so they had to use an intelligent strategy; Eric insisted that it be him who murders Warkos as he will have done his country a great honour. So he came as a paying customer at the tavern/bistro, all the other customers left, as well as the staff. Warkos was unmoved by this, as he was deep in thoughts. This became easy for Eric, never had anyone been murdered with such pleasure... It is documented that Warkos' last words, softly and lazily uttered, were: "Where's Tellaby?"

you got tired of hearing sorry
so you ignored me

you got tired of my complaining
so you told me to shut up

you got tired of my words
so you never listened

you got tired of my flaws
so you avoided me

you finally got tired of me
so you left without a word

I didn't know exactly what your name was for a long while. You've been inside of me on numerous occasions. Sometimes when you visit, you stay for weeks, other times you might only visit for a day - whatever the length of your visit you never cease to leave me questioning my ..sanity  (If sanity exists any more)?

I can’t tell whether you’re part of me, or if you’re merely a confused visitor, who happened to once find some empty cavity in me that could foster you for a while, and have since returned from mere convenience. Either way, I still haven’t yet decided whether I like your company or not. We shall see.

I appreciate that you never let me become too content. You omnipresently remind me that I do not deserve to be too happy, too blissfully at peace with my surroundings. I thank you for that. It reminds me what I need to do, who I need to help, what I should do, and who I should be helping.

I don’t like how guilty you make me feel. I don’t like how I've grown to become frightened of what you might, one day, make me become. You've made me think and consider things I've only ever shunned others for thinking and doing. Why the fuck do you do that? Do you know how confused it makes me? You've made me feel like I'm only controlling about 90% of what goes on up there. I hate that feeling. I'm still in control, I know that much - but even that measly 10% that you've taken from me makes me feel robbed.

You've made me doubt my aspirations. This is what I probably hate you the most for. I know I want to write. I want to write about the people who deserve to be written about. I want to sit with them, I want to watch and feel their suffering, and I want to somehow translate that into words and put it in print for the world to read. But I don’t want what I write to become merely a story to the people who read it. I want them to read it, and feel it seep into their skin. I want them to feel the pain of the people whose pain I am writing to them about. I never want what I make to simply become a ‘show’ to people. But I can’t do that. That’s not how people are made.

You make me think I adamantly hate people. I know I don’t, I hope I don’t - but you trick me into thinking it with such conviction that, when you decide to leave me, I'm left wondering whether it was really you or I who put that in my head in the first place.

There are bad people in the world. Hell, most of us are bad. We are horrible. Our morals and our beliefs turn us into things we never wanted to be, but somehow all ended up as. And once we've become a monster, very rarely can we become the pure, good, perfect things we were born as.

But, I know that some people have goodness in them. I hope that I am one of them. It frightens me like nothing else to think that, maybe, I am not a good person. That I am as disgusting as the people who switch the channel when something comes on their television that isn't a fictional drama, comedy, murder-mystery, whatever, because they find it unpleasant. Or because it doesn't effect them.

I don’t want to be just another person who donates money to charities, walks around in old, inexpensive clothing, volunteers and help people, and does it because she wants people to look at her and think “Damn, she’s a good person”. I don’t want people to think of me as a good person. I don’t want people to think of me at all. I don’t want people to know what I do, why I do it, or how I do it. I just want to do the things I can, have people benefit from them, then remember the THINGS. Not the face or the name of the person who did them.

I want a stranger to think “Someone gave a homeless person their shoes. I could do that. I could give a homeless person my shoes. I have another pair, I don’t need them. That’s what I’ll do” and do it. Then maybe someone will see them and do it also. But to think that someone would think of the deed then link it to me, or to a face generally - that repulses me. It repulses me into thinking that, somehow, every person nowadays is objectified, and every object is personified. And it’s terrifying.

I go to sleep every night with that thought in my head. I don’t know who to blame for putting it there. If it was you, Electra, just make it clear that that’s the case. I will forgive you. I will still let you come back when you have nowhere else to go. I would just like to know.

For now, that’s all I have to say to you. I hope your stay is comfortable, and you’re experiencing a pleasant refuge from whatever you are hiding from. When you next leave, please make sure to leave me what is mine. I often find myself feeling, after your visits, that part of what I had has left with you - which, generally wouldn't bother me, except I've never gotten those bits back.

Thanks.
Love, your ever-accommodating E.