This waiting room is painted of pain,
featuring faces with mouths down-turned,
impatience taking up these empty seats,
of family members already lost,
we feel like the least loved
in the mighty grasps of almighty fate's
crushing hands,
we feel like the last patients
to be visited during the night shifts,
by nurses and doctors,
the times of day when the most dust
is swept back to the humble soil
by an unseen, yet not-so-invisible bashing broom.
the old fan - barely hanging -
is closing in full circle,
a whole life lived.
dull curtains, some unhooked and five minutes to falling,
alongside the walls' stripes
designed with a print of doctors' usual words,
"I'm so sorry for your loss."  

If life truly begins at forty,
then hers ended at the starting line.
this would be a misplaced and mixed metaphor
if it weren't for olympics silently running in the background on the tv
reminds me of my mute cries, surprised eyes bulging, gaping mouths with no sound.

It ought to be a preventative measure; just a routine operation
a possibly cancerous lump.
I am flipping aimlessly through these magazine pages,
each catching a tear-drop for the dog-ears
(whoever reads them next will turn the pages over better).
Some puzzled maze pieces fall out of a box,
my baby cousin tries to gather the cardboard paper of a family tree picture,
but the least important twigs are lost, and the last friendly branch found missing.
The many portraits that make up the landscape go away from time to time.
It was just a little, smallish lump.
these news are hard to swallow.
my eyes are peeling onions.
my throat is winter-hands dry.
mum says she saw her the most alive
a few odd minutes before time clocked aunt out.
Grandma's sister blames herself for suggesting, advising, and in retrospect putting "pressure".
neutral colours ***** the Scrubs' floors,
hypothermia lurking in the corridors,
but the coke from the vending machine is medicine lukewarm.

It was a game of musical chairs,
But when the seven trumpets sounded,
the stools remained still, they stood facing eastward in hexagonal formation.
An angel ascended, the remnants were six shadows now.
With a plot twist, it's less players each round.
Who dies first wins, I've tossed too much soil on dust, my hands are *****.
We wash our hands clean with this paraffin.
Open-casket, the last sight took my breath away - the whitened clay still one,
but with the breath of life taken away, by the One, who giveth and taketh.

It's also winter our hearts,
dips of grief, dabs of black clothing, grim-reaper the thief, we still loath him.
another weekend
another sad-a-day
another funeral.
And his life was a summary,
too brief a breath, as the contraction is.
No sympathy to bother saying
"I am".
Public or private hospitals, dark clouds gather above all.

Twenty-twelve was a scar,
for four years now we are still scooping our scabs, from the bottomless pits,
that fell from ever-fresh wounds picked at a tad too prematurely,
so very early.
Some of the things we will take to our graves
will take us to our graves, as we exhume our pre-mourning selves.
And hurt still drops in drips,
red-bottomed-sticky feet from the blood-washed tiles,
the pain and the paint in permanent.
Some matters you can only think about
when you are half-awake and half-asleep, because these nightmares
are too real to be dreams.

uThixo Ovayo unoNobantu, nabantu bakhe bonke ngamaxesha onke.

~ by New-Black-SoUl #NBS

If I can be so selfish to ask,
Let her love to read,
As much as I love to write.

She tells me,
"You're very self aware,
You know what, why and how you do things,
Yet you continue to do them."

I explain to her that I never learned how to ask for help
So I only ever knew how to look to myself for the answer
Which has led me to become pretty creative with metaphors
As well as entertaining internal monologues,
Like when I explained to her that my parents look at me
And see a knot of misfortune
Without looking at all the threads that I'm comprised of
Which led them to this conclusion of me.

She asked me if I ever thought of harming other people
To which I noted that I tend to play fruit-ninja
With peoples faces
In my head.
Though I'd never actually do anything,
Just as I'm able to keep a professional demeanor
Giving no hints to
The constant stream of expletives in my head.

She asks me why I don't feel like I have friends,
Which leads me to disclose
That I can't tell if I work too much
To spend time with friends
Or if I do it to distract from the lack of.

I laugh when I regale her
With how I recently bought a yoyo
Because it is relaxing
And makes me feel like a cool kid
That would be part of the gang in Hey Arnold,
Stating that it's been helping me with my panic attacks
By focusing on making my yoyo
Go around the world,
Pretending it was me,
Circumventing my lack of coping mechanisms.

Iliana looks at me, with her mouth slightly turned down
Attempting to keep a straight face
Though her brows still knit together in slight confusion
As she asks me how I'm able to say all of this with a smile on my face,
"Well," I state, "I don't have time to be depressed."