I am unlovable.
Easily broken
like the glass that shattered
long before I even touched it.
I am war-
too volatile to handle,
too unpredictable to wait for
so I told you to run,
take nothing with you
(except for regret)
for it will only slow you down
and I don’t have time to warn you twice.
Why would you choose to stay?
Years later
I’m still sitting in my aloneness
in a home built out of paper mache and sweat
anger and hate weighing comfortably in my aching belly-
I am only vengeful towards my body,
and it knows that.
I spit fires from my tongue,
setting borders alight
because unbounded
is the only way that I’ll have you Love-
You know just how it is that I like my coffee.
Bloodied walls
and broken hands,
I’ve been building this staircase for a while now.
…I’m just looking to ask god why…
You asked me if I was ready
and I told you that my pain wasn't done baking yet
I am still dancing with the shadows of my demons-
I am open wounds that refuse to heal.
I want to feel your breath on my skin
but I am afraid of how it deeply it will scar
because every time you touch me,
I bleed.
My lungs started collecting dust
on a shelf somewhere:-
collapsed from the heaviness of mistrust
and almost apologies-
Yes, my mother did warn me about men
that creep in and out women’s chests at night.
So go on and make a home out of her,
I’m no use to you like this.
I am bloodshed.
I am war.
Too volatile too handle,
and too unpredictable to wait for.
My pain isn’t done baking yet,
but I will wait by the waters until it does.
I am alright in my own solitude…
I’ll make poetry out it.
By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu
Nov 16, 2015
Nov 16, 2015 at 2:14 PM UTC
these fingers don’t seem big enough
to catch all your losses
and my pockets are filled to the brim with shame
so forgive me when I say that
i can’t love you right now
because I put my happiness in a bottle
marked
“for emergencies only”
it seems that
in the midst of all the chaos
i misplaced my faith again
in the juxtaposition of your embrace
and my inability to heal
so i hailed a cab for you
because it me killed more to
watch you stay suffering
in this fragmented
and disillusioned
version of reality
years from now
i’ll still be constructing a self
that is less destructive than this
within the boundaries
of crumbling walls
and absent apologies
that keep the pain flowing in
the reason that I stopped
looking for your blue dress
in the blur of blank spaces
is because
i broke my kaleidoscope long ago
searching for the better version of me
that could convince you to
come back home
once more
since then
my heart has known only
the indifference of your presence
because I stopped calling out for you
in crowded streets filled broken souls
such as myself
poor people digging for meaning
and rainbows
in colourless conversations
trying to please an insatiable hunger
forgetting that our bellies
are already swollen
with disappointment and anger
By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu
Jun 2, 2015
Jun 2, 2015 at 12:04 AM UTC
I hate that I still think of you-
My brain still lingers onto
yesterdays
and handholds
that never existed.
I hate that I still look for you
in the crowds of people,
and empty hallways
hoping that maybe
when our eyes meet
your heart would remember me
and skip a beat
I hate that my words still
get tangled in my mouth
because
even though I've tried to convince myself
that I am so very angry with you,
the tiniest bits of me still wish that you
cared enough about me
to be mad at me too...
I hate that every time I hear your name,
the little hairs on my arms shoot up
all alert and angsty
in the the hopes
that maybe one day you will appear
from your hiding spot
unless its me that you are hiding from?
Everybody says that you are no good for me
That I deserve someone who sees me:
I hate that I know that
But I chose to ignore it
And now I have to
pretend to hold it together
while you get to walk around
unscathed
by the touch of our hands
You would think that
I would have stopped waiting by now,
for invitations I know will never arrive
and conversations that won’t ever start up again,
but I haven’t
and I hate that I haven’t,
I really do.
So go on leave then,
walk out the door for the last time-
But I won’t be here when you come again
because I can’t keep apologising
for mistakes that I haven’t made yet.
By: Lulwama K. Mulalu
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 1:08 AM UTC
Twelve O’clock;
two hands
frozen.
And how time did stand still
–so still.
To allow us
to live
more,
to linger
just a little bit longer
in a kiss-
born from so lustful a longing,
it simply made the world
stop
for a while.
And in those non seconds
of sheer silence
I finally caught my breath
again,
and again,
and again,
and again.
By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 1:25 PM UTC
I saw the dam wall struggle
underneath all the weight
of the water
we said to have been
"under the bridge”-
Still,
I thought that the floods
would not have arrived so soon
in the early days
of summer:
all those fostered feelings of
worthlessness,
and anger
came rushing back,
like pent up pressure
in too small a space,
pushing hard
against
the crumbling walls
of my current state
of unhappy,
entropy maybe?
I don’t know.
By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu
Apr 4, 2015
Apr 4, 2015 at 11:45 PM UTC
Yes-
You walked into this
knowing that
you would get burned.
But still you touched
with already blistered,
and charcoaled hands
because
once
is never enough
for children to truly comprehend
the lessons
their mothers taught
them
Don’t play with fire sweetheart
for your heart will turn into
ash
once
her
ambers
go out.
You choked on the heat
of your desires
after they went up in flames,
setting your insides ablaze
and of course
with help always arriving
a second too late-
who could
save you
from the firestorm
that had just
erupted
in the shallows
of
your mind?
So don’t play with fire sweetheart,
because you will get burned.
The smoke will
char your lungs,
leaving
you panicked
for release.
And lust will do that-
It will
set alight
everything it touches
destroying
anything unwanted,
that even dares
to stand in its way.
Arson is a crime.
By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 2:41 PM UTC
I want to leave a map of
Butterfly Kisses on your chest:-
I will delicately press my lips against your tender skin
And trace an intricate pathway of gentle poetry from
the very tips of your hair,
to the bottoms of your feet;
I want to make sure that
whenever your smile wanders off somewhere into the night,
it can always
re-trace its footsteps back home…
to me
I want to leave a map of
Butterfly Kisses on your chest:-
Itty bitty breadcrumb words and metaphors
To remind your next lover
(as a precaution)
Just how it is that you like your coffee.
I want to place the alphabet in your mouth
So that every time you kiss her-
You can tell her your story.
I will hide little poems
In the crevices of your mind
And anecdotes between
the hallowed out spaces on your spine
for you to remember
me
when you walk out the door
for the last time.
By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 12:55 PM UTC
I am scared to let myself feel vulnerable for you:
See,
My heart’s been tortured by your kind before-
So I lay bricks of mistrust and hurt around it
Because even once-
Is one too many times for me
To feel so very deeply,
The unrequited touches on my frayed skin.
They say that drowning is the worst way to die,
But what if I willingly dive into the sea of blue
that is your eyes…
Would that still count as suicide?
Do you ever think of me,
Half as many times as I do you?
Because I often wonder:
Are we still friends in the dark,
Or do you also hear the loudness of my heartbeat
reverberating through my chest-
For you?
By: Lulwama K. Mulalu (.15)
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 7:51 PM UTC
Sometimes I think that love toys with me because she knows just how easy it is to break me. If I could sing of all the ways in which she got me wrong, or fumbled on her timing, god ****** my vocal chords would rip themselves out- because I sure wouldn't have the strength to. I surrender; I am waving the white flag because I am defeated by her lack of empathy. Why does she give only to take? Is it because my child-like-heart still refuses to learn from the many mistakes that I've made?
But...
Innocence doesn't know any better than to look for comfort and warmth in open spaces, doesn't bother to use a compass to find out where exactly it's running to, or even understand that not everybody who holds my hand is worth bleeding out for.
The other day love came through my doors unannounced: she was livid and shouting obscenities, demanding me to tell her what exactly it was that I wanted from her. What.did.I.want. from.her? The audacity-
Dear love,
Where were you when the entire house of cards that we built and called home, came crashing down? You know, I still haven't managed to pick out the small pieces of your betrayal from the hallowed out spaces between my bruised ribs. As it turns out, you actually can't fashion a future out of tattered faith and recycled paper just like you said.
YOU'RE A SUFFOCATOR: my lungs are burned and black because I'm still breathing in smoke from the previous fires that you started. How dare you leave my mouth parched, constantly thirsty for something sweeter than your bitter endings! That is not fair. I found out years too late that blind trust is really not the same as following you, mind shut, into the dark. (And just to let you know, you actually never did explain the difference between "white lies" and "half truths" right.)
I'm exhausted. But I guess constantly having to search for meaning in empty conversations will do that to a person. I followed your voice here because I thought that that was what you wanted me to do. Well, wasn't it?...
If you stop singing the blues for me, I promise I'll stop blaming you for my river of tears. When I was younger my father taught me that "pain only builds character", and so I will take all **** that you've put me through and paint it a nice gold. To be fair, I must commend you for a valuable lesson I've learnt:
******** do come packaged quite nicely don't you think?
P.S I would really like my running shoes back.
Yours,
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 10:22 AM UTC
I had to strip you bare
Of all your convictions
Because you had no choice
But to wear the weight of the world
On your broken back
I watched as you cried
Rivers upon rivers in the desert
Because life had given you no choice
But to save your dying garden
With the only water that you had left
The heaviness of standing up straight
Became too much for your swollen feet;
So instead:
You stand limply with a spine crooked
From the many dry days you spend,
back curled over,
And head hanging towards the earth-simply praying for the rain
I heard them whisper the stories
About the screams they ignored
That came from other side of the door
Of the house you grew up in:
So tell me,
was it your husband or your father
That frightened you more?
(Because they never said...)
Your mother always told you that
Roses could never bloom in the desert-
But you ploughed in dusty soils anyway,
Hoping that love would grow on the pain
The rains had not washed away yet
It seems that the sun had willed itself
To burn down everything that you owned-
So with calloused and cracked hands
You dug deeper into the ground
In search of anything to put the fires out
I heard you lamenting for rain
In that dischorded voice of yours;
But no matter how many tears you wept
Or however many prayers that you sent,
They were just never enough
To make flowers bud in the desert.
By: Lulwama K. Mulalu
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 9:34 PM UTC