We sing,
But nobody truly listens.

We dance,
But nobody truly sees.

We recite,
But nobody truly understands.

We paint,
But nobody truly resonates.

We write,
But nobody really reads.

We act,
And everyone applauds,
Everyone says 'that's so true,'
And everyone moves on.

The plight of the artist.
Requiescat in pace.
Beginning of humanity - 2019.

This is all I see.
The stump of a dead tree,
Murdered, in an enraged spree.
There seems to be nothing left for you or me.

What else can I do?
I make poetry to cry to,
For when there’s nothing left inside you.
All I see are backs against walls,
Hands behind heads, as liberty falls.

I don’t have a place here.
I serve no functional role.
It’s like I don’t even have a name,
It’s like death already took its toll.

Why am I like this?
Dangerous, like a snake’s hiss,
Lost, far from any kind of bliss.
An anarchist, and an artist,
Doomed, someone who history won’t miss.

Foretold to never die old,
But rather, alone and cold,
In a rash moment, probably defiantly bold.
I’d rather be so, than be bought and sold.

The wind whistled with wistful woe.
I saw my sins written in blood, on the wall;
Spilling gin like an alcoholic flood, in an empty hall.
Tortured by demons, just going at it toe-to-toe.
My faults, my bad calls –
All the catastrophic somersaults,
And all the many falls.

Sometimes, I’ll forget to eat or sleep,
To relax and unwind, fall back to a natural beat –
All I’m here to do is bring you heat,
This series of verses that echo and repeat,
The kind that take over your soul, ergo, it concedes defeat.
I chose to neglect my needs,
I smoke my ****, go berserk with this craft,
I hone my intellect like I’m scared of being daft.
Besides myself, I have nothing left.
Inept at fitting in, not even close to adept,
Stuck in red tape like I’m buried in applications I’m filling in,
Living in this world of endless theft.

This is all I’ve got,
So I give it all I’ve got.
One chance, one shot –
Taking a soldier’s stance,
Choosing a ******’s spot.
A verbal marksman,
A thousand-yard stare –
Swinging like Tarzan,
To dream is to dare.

Thing is, pretty words and tight rhymes don’t matter,
Not when you can’t fall asleep.
‘Tis a fitting curse, writing wise lines –
No matter how clever or steep,
Nothing helps with those terrors from the deep.

The heart ache I have;
I think it finally broke me.
This rat race we made;
I think it finally choked me.
I think I’m done;
Nothing can console me.

A silence, saliently insisting on its one day of reign,
Reminding you to reflect before you act,
To think beyond what you could gain.

We look back at our ancestors,
Recalcitrant in the face of the British, the French;
We praise their heroics, remember them in feasts,
Yet still, we are divided, brawling like beasts.

Against the oppressor, we stood united;
A colonised nation, struggling for identity.
Master-less we finally became, celebrating independence;
Yet now, we have subverted to sadist deference.

Men in sharp suits and their slimy, convincing faces;
They like to think they hold all the aces,
That they can and will divide and conquer all of the planet’s open spaces.
They tell us what to think, what to feel, what to do, what to vote,
They’ll tell you when to swim or when to sink,
When to squeal and how to heal,
What is true when you don’t have a clue,
And what to quote when you want to sound profound.
They are snivelling, Rolex-wielding, aftershave-wearing ******* with an arrogant bearing,
And they have no issues with asking you about why the *******’re glaring.

So, I suppose, today there's not much choice;
There is a snarling wolf on one hand,
And an angry bear on the other.
When your choice is that bad,
Why should you even bother?

'By any means necessary', Malcolm X would say.
There seems to be no solution,
Excepting a call for armed revolution.
Anarchists and troublemakers, unite;
Time to take down the state,
Like cutting the line to a kite.

Seems wrong, feels right;
Feels like longing, seems like it’s alright.
Like it’s alright to ignore sentiment,
Despite my heart being set alight,
Intensely bright, incandescent.

Rationality, grounded in reality –
In opposition,
Spirituality, grounded in alacrity.
When these two are bound together,
We drift through life peacefully, light as a feather.
When these two oppose each other,
Then we must compose ourselves, or otherwise suffer.

There is so much our two eyes cannot see;
It’s the third one that really sets you free.
When internal conflict arises,
When infernal flames contract your irises,
Know that on the inside,
Deep in your heart, where you cannot hide,
Know that you know what’s right.

It might seem irrational,
It might feel insane;
It might be unfashionable,
It might even sound lame –
Your decision is only limited by you,
The perspective which is your frame.

Listen to your heart’s hidden chambers;
Turn its volume up, like your annoying neighbours.
Let your soul speak;
For our lives are not long,
And the future seems rather bleak.

I love how we could literally talk for hours –
Lighting a spark in each others’ hearts,
Figuratively glowing like meteor showers.
I love singing that one song with you;
You know the one,
The one we sang in the rain,
The one that always rings true.

I can’t stop myself from looking at you,
Not without this twinkle of wonder in my eyes.
Certainly not without this tingle that runs along my spine,
Not without a heartbeat so loud that it sounds like thunder.
You make me smile so much, my face hurts sometimes;
You take me high to places with better climes,
Spiritual spaces, elevation by design.

The signs are all there –
Lives running on parallel lines,
With no direction, no need to know where.
Unburdened, beautiful, loving care,
Sensations unheard of,
Dutifully calming like someone stroking your hair,
Hearts laid out to each other like we’ve got a spare.

I love how grateful we are for each other’s presence.
The word ‘hateful’ doesn’t even exist here,
It’s almost like you make me forget its essence.
Every second is a learning opportunity,
And you’ve helped me learn so many lessons already –
Maybe we should call our hang-outs ‘life sessions’.

I love how even a hug carries so much weight,
Momentous in its significance,
Enough to make my heart flutter like I’m late for a date.
I’m going to miss you so much when you leave.
Thank you for reminding me how to wear my heart on my sleeve.

I hope wherever you are,
Whatever you’ve done,
Know that I’m sorry I wasn’t the right one.
We almost killed each other,
Became hateful, when we were once lovers.

I don’t want to write this,
I don’t want you to read it;
Part of me still feels you don’t deserve it,
Yet here it is –
I’m sorry for making my issues yours,
For the forest’s worth of used tissues,
For the days of unrest, weeping on the floor.

I hope you’re happy,
Because I know you weren’t.
It was apparent and evident, I chose not to see it;
Selfish needs and the wrong words acted as intermediates,
I wasn’t really there, I shouldn’t have been.
I was recovering, and I was still weak and lean.
Silently uttering, when all I wanted was to scream.

Maybe one day we’ll forgive one another,
Until then, I think you know who this is.
I was passing by and I just wrote this,
Sorry for the bother.

* * *

This is not an attempt to rekindle a catastrophe,
This is quite simply an overdue apology.
I’m not accepting all the blame, either;
Excepting the shame I felt for letting you get into my head,
I have become stronger and wiser,
And I wish to use this wisdom to make the world brighter.

I’m in your street because I’m publishing a book,
Or at least trying to;
Not that poetry ever meant that much to you.
But, it has brought me and my thoughts here again,
To the times where our fights were not a matter of if,
But when.

I have found it very hard to love again;
After ‘You’, anxiety killed me, made me upend,
Upend everything, a bevvy of sick feelings,
Memories of every time we had each other begging and kneeling.
I’m still in the process of healing,
This is my way of doing that,
Coping and healing.
I hope you found yours.

_______________