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?"

There's something about everything about nothing about how we were created, tiny blips in a system of "Nothing Even Matters" starring the worst producers in the universe. One could catch a glimpse of us as they pass by to get to somewhere better and laugh, and shake their heads and they would know our only purpose in existence was to make them feel better inside. But whoever writes a book in the view of the indifferent? Whoever directs a movie where nothing different happens? That's like asking who remembers the forgotten, it's possible but ever so unlikely, and sure as sine is undulated, under appreciated, somewhat very deflated, and though we aren't remembered, we sure aren't too terribly hated.

There's something about anything that could be distributed as significance in this underrated little beauty, flourished world that runs about full of life and clarity, streaming with disparity, slow depreciating, and sometimes we're defeating the purpose of why we're unique, and we slowly take the filters out of our little selfie, loosing all this isn't healthy, and we diminish all signs of  any significance and we become as lifeless as a meteor, and I sometimes think "What is this for?" And then I simply sigh and take my sunglasses outside and stare into the sun, and wonder if anyone in the entire world has gotten off their iPhones or TVs and stared at the sun along with me.

There's something about how I feel when the little things get to me, like grades or dating drama, getting larger, more dramatic, oh it's such a ceaseless phlegmatic, and I sit at my stirring house and wonder how I can bear to live it anymore. But then I start to realise the person passing over is really staring us in the face and watching this world run in place. I'm not going to think about it anymore, it's all part of Earth's perpetual cycle, I'm not going to stop this utter nonsense now because it's time for me to go to my next class.

People the world over suffer
They suffer from:
Hard circumstances, warring institutions,
Famine, lack of education,
Drugs and abuse, poverty, the list is endless.
But they are also addicted...addicted to hope.
Hope that things will improve
Hope that their dreams will one day be realized
Hope that what is so hard will finally be a hurtle passed
Hope is their mind's addiction, the fuel for whatever
It is they are striving for
If the temporary satiation of a drug is finally found,
Then their hope for the drug and their hope for the feeling
And their hope for the escape from reality are fueling them.
If they are struggling to make ends meet, to feed themselves,
clothe their children, escape the debt collector, find a place to sleep
Their hope is to not to have to face these same issues
Every day for as many days as they have living.
If suffering from illness, they hope for healing or death
Hope is their addiction when the young children sit in hot, enclosed spaces
Ill, hungry, malnourished, traumatised
Hope for something better, better than what is before them
Hopelessness is acceptance, it is living in the day to day
Knowing what is is, what can't be changed can't be changed
what can be changed for the better,
Well steps towards that then are slowly taken
And the absolute beauty of life, the wonder of these moments
Begin to sparkle and shine in a way that is subtly impressive
Small is sometimes the most beautiful of all
it is solid, it is simple, it is a sturdy brick upon which one can
Always grasp and stand upon...over and over and over
Refreshing and truly adventurous
To see the nature and artifice of the path one is walking
Realizing that each step is a changing landscape
Of environment, perspective, emotion, situation
When one is down they look up with hope, their addiction solidly in place,
To get to the top of the mountain for a finer view
An accomplishment and relief at having succeeded
but the top is always just the pinnacle
And hope to remain affixed in such a perilous place
Is not in actuality possible
Be it a very violent gust that blows you off,
For we all know the wind vortices are something fierce in mountainous terrain,
Or a misstep, a loss of footing as the ground suddenly whithers away,
Perhaps the grasping hands of others trying to join you,
Their hope addiction now at an all-time high because they
Are. Right. There.
Clawing like animals for the last little handhold to hoist themselves up
And in shouldering themselves into a stand,
They accidentally knock you off, or not accidentally perhaps.
Whatever the case, hope addiction swings back into full force
and if it doesn't motivate, it at least satiates the mind
But hope addiction is also deceptive,
It rallies the wild dreams and ignites the heart with delusions
When hopelessness and acceptance and disconnect are a wiser course
For to live on hope addiction alone is not sustaining
It isn't real.
When alternatives and different paths may be wiser, better
To begin walking upon for now
Hope addiction can be misleading, blinding
He beauty of hopelessness is looking then without the hope addiction
At the possibility that this new path, albeit much different from the other
Is only visible up to a few steps ahead
Does it curve? Does it stop? Does it merge further down
With the original path or perhaps another different one?
Hope addiction...I have been addicted to hope
We all have, it is beautiful and it is scary
I live in hopelessness...content, happy, busy, progressing, adventurous, never knowing what little chocolate from the box of life my day is going to taste like.
I must admit though, one a day is not enough to really enjoy a full day...fully.

In winter, more than just the cold swoops in.
The hard times,
the long nights,
the burning wood is something you must accept.
Although you sit in a tight ball,
wondering why you feel like this every year,
it doesn't change that this season reappears.
Christmas and New Years aren't times of celebration anymore.
They're simply mile markers of how far away the sunshine is.
but, the sunshine isn't spring anymore.
It's the joy that's seeped out of my very existence.
I hope one cold wintery day I awake and can find beauty in these simple things.
Yet, it's not that simple.
I've grown too fond of summer rain.

I'm going to have to be the one
No one else can save me,
not one human on the earth has the time to constantly be along someone's suffering side
So it'll be me, to do the duty on myself, to get through this never ending battle
& I'll be stronger at the end of it
But it's just so hard to do it alone while feeling so alone,
it even hurts to know that there are not many people who consistently reach out enough to grab  me,
to lift me up and get me going
I'll have to be the one
I'm me, no one else can do it for me,
independency
But when you've spiraled down into such a deep dark place and you try to get out,
every inch doesn't feel that much closer to the light
I fall back in the mud again
Just to fail once more
To be a failure again
To repeat the cycle again
To never get out
To be stuck
Stuck in the mud that I fell in
Thank god it's not quick sand
If it was, I'd never get out
That's how I know there's hope
There's gotta be
Nothing lasts forever
Besides life
Life is infinite
Infinity is what?
People keep on smiling and thats great,
no jealousy,  just envy for their days that keep on  going, their routines and lives that are naturally just flowing, while I space out & sit in silence and wait to disappear in a sphere that's not crystal clear
My bones ache and for gods sake,
I try my hardest to appreciate
That I'm alive today
Even though my days are grey
Getting out of bed never felt so hard
It's like I've lost all my strength &
the power of my body and mind
I'm lost, but no ones there to find me,
I'll be here to find me, there's a little hope inside of me
Reading is such a chore,
since i lose track of everything,
feeling like a bore
No energy to take care of me,
well this is how it'll have to be,
but hopefully.. this is just temporary.

You talk to me like a kid,
taking advantage of my courtesy,
You forget that you are just human and imperfect,
yet you take advantage of my generosity,
you make fun of me and we all laugh together
but yet you should know where to
draw the line.
Perhaps, do you want me to set the boundary line?
i didn't think so..
In as much,the atmosphere will no longer be as refreshing
as yesterday.
However, today i am laying my emotions on this rostrum.
Where no one enquires me on this platform,

Hence i liberate myself thus.

Easing from the center of a
Six foot ever-green hedge
As if thru an invisible doorway
From Zombie-land
Head first
Eyes like headlights
With high-beams on
Swiveling on too thin neck
Checking the scene
For a victim...
Emaciated shoulders
Pointy knee
Stretches
Ragged pant legs and
Ashy ankles
Flopping shoes… with
Empty lace-holes
Until finally
An entire man
Or what used to be one
Spies me…
But not before I see…
Just trying to get to work
But it’s the two-legged animals
That one must
Beware of
At five a.m.
In the city

≈

Police car cruising
The complex parking lot
Spotlight shines
But I don’t mind
Check me out Mr. Officer…
If you need to …
Cuz I’m not the one you are looking for
So he passes… as
Dusty Perpetrator
Rises
From inside
The dumpster across the way…
Scabby,
Crafty face
Uncomfortably resting under
Debris filled hair
Turns on
Boney neck… and
Spies me…
But not before I see…
Casually shut the door… and
Engage the locks
Cuz it’s the two-legged animals
That one must
Beware of
When the door knob jiggles
In the city