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Aug 24 · 33
Preparing for battle
There are worriers in their homes
Singing praise to the most high
As the sun rises
Sending notes as offering to the sky
Starting from the dark untill the light
Leaving their enemies out to dry
In a small corner
Away from prying eyes
In the silent night
Louder their outcry
May 2023 · 497
Growing pains
The pains growing
On me
Like a new haircut
Framed with tears
Either side of my face
Pretty trails of water
Pillowed by my cheek
Salty.
You’re sweet to say that
I’m not listening
I don’t mean my smile
Be weary of my speech
I’m fine.
I’m okay.
There’s a siren inside of me
Can you hear it?
Silent screams behind
Smile smoke screens
The pain’s growing.
It’s growing in me.
Mar 2023 · 394
Untitled
Love me with your words

With
    rhythm
      in
        your
          rhyme

Sample me in your poetry

Take your heart out of your chest and give it to me, serve it on a page

Sign it with your name

Speak to me so I can understand

Love me with ink on your hands
Feb 2023 · 877
Loves fool
I am a fool as they say, because only fools fall in
Love. what should be we, feels like
You. And you are …
Too busy to say it back

© Raffi
Oct 2022 · 596
Too little Too late
Too little too late
Good things come to those who wait
Don’t believe what they say
Have to start all over again
Too little to late
The twitch on my left eye won’t go away
Remembering the good times is hard
When there so little of them to recollate
Too little to late…

© Raffi
Aug 2022 · 2.1k
Love like a symphony
I love you like the sun loves the day

I love you the way morning meets my windows
and then my face

The way the stars stay faithful to the night sky

How the spring greets the summer and bleeds to fall

Like the breeze that passes through trees
Caressing gently the autumn leaves

Springs polite decline to winters invite
A harmonic fight

I love you like the way the darkness is pierced by the light

Every time you smile my heart takes flight

Love like a movie
Black and white

Bursts of colour
Soundtrack to my life

I love you every time my heart beats

Constantly, consistently, fiercely, calmly, bravely, quietly… with every adjective and all their synonyms

With every vessel and part of me

I love you every time my heart beats.
Love like a symphony
I hear it every time you breathe
You’re the conductor
Pulling on my heartstrings

The sound of your heartbeat
My loves lifeline
Till the end of time

Because I love you.
I love you every time my heart beats.

© Raffi
Jan 2019 · 6.6k
H A I R
There's history in my hair please don't touch, handle with care.
It's the same as this perfect pigment,
this melanin I wear
Richly rooted in my blood
Whether dark or fair

Sun kissed and kinked in bliss
More love for my 'rough n tough Afro puff'
She shines like the Sahara sun
She smells like the salt of the Gold coast sea.
Theres a hint of the bittersweet seed of the cocoa tree.
Feels like the pillow that holds all your dreams with the dry Harmattan wind brushing against your cheek
She'll whisper secrets of the motherland.... If you get close enough

She holds like Mina
Curls with pride
Falls with grace and integrity.
Stubborn like the struggle of the ones before me.
Gravity defying masterpiece that's just a single piece of me, a reminder of my ancestry.
It's my glory, my covering

Don't take it lightly, don't misunderstand, I'm a work of art so please peep but just don't touch.

© Raphaela Israel Öbeñg
Apr 2017 · 529
Nouveau Jour
She rested her head against the windowsill, tracing her fingers along the rigid, empty patches of wood where that white paint used to be. Once up on a time.

The little whisps of hair that lay limply at the back of her neck became startled as the cold from the windowsill carressed her cheek.
Her eyes turned to the night, where the sky nursed the stars. Pockets of light screaming out into the blackness, before fading into the day. As her mind began to drift, She wandered what promise lay behind those diamonds of light. What would she find if she took that blanket of black by the corners and shook it. What would she see.
The girl sat there, her finger still tracing the chipped paint; running after her lingering thoughts. She sat there untill that familair flame grew bright, bleeding night into dawn. Morning came. the dew settled once again.
Fresh from the heavens and as she turned away, her finger stopped. She breathed a sweet sigh. A sigh filled with secrets, covered in beauty. Then she stretched her legs over the side of her bed, the crack from her toes an unapologetic symphony that her feet sang having spent the night bunched up cross legged by the window. Walking across her room to her bedroom door, she reached for the handle, turning it slowly, opening the door to another day.
Another day painted by mercy and given by grace

     © Raffi
Dec 2016 · 444
Alice in wonderland
I long for the touch, warmth of your skin. I yearn for my own. A prized possession more than diamonds and gold.
Cover it with the sky’s eyes. In my mind’s eye, a wonderland painted with chaos in stripes of coloured confusion in all its distorted beauty.
Come with me to my wonderland. Be my fairy-tale.

To the twinge and twinkle of the stars we’ll sway our bodies together in harmonious defeat.
Light up my dark with your smile.
Fill my heart with your innocence.
Paint my walls with the honey dipped harps hidden in your voice.
Soften this sedative of insanity with your love. Dancing in the night. Space filled with emptiness.

Two single souls favouring the stars in melodic motion.
Spinning in the heavens spotlight.
The passion of a thousand burning suns hidden between them.
My escape from madness.

But like a rose; prominent in beauty and tenderness, it withers away.
Crumbling at the hands of immortality.
A symphonic sigh clawed from her sentiment dried lips.

From ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

Life did not live on in wonderland.

No escape from my wonderland

                        © Raffi
Jun 2016 · 771
Silence
Silence with its ‘s’ that stings.
Holding you captive, bound your wings.
It burns into the pit of your soul.
Hungry for your words of wisdom
In this cold, loud silence fear is planted.
A single seed that will grow into a tree,
Bearing fruit of anger pain hate and jealousy,
Consuming you inside and out. Silence is a thief;
It comes not to sow but to reap.
To rip the foundation from beneath your feet. So I say to you

SPEAK.

             © Raffi
Jun 2016 · 445
Her Hands
In the black canvas of the night, bleeding light,
Brightness trembled at the movement of her fingertips.
Five rods of flesh and bone soaking up promise that lay in the sky smiling down at her.
Beauty luminescent within the night.
She heard a voice say; don’t let your hands rot and wrinkle with the weight of broken promises
But allow every inch to be fulfilled.
The power is in your hands and its disposal at your fingertips.

          © Raffi

— The End —