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I’m twenty years old, I wanna get caked up
You’re twenty years old, but all you want is to get coked up,
Live it how you want it, I won’t judge
And you’re a happy girl
As long as you’re fed, admired, and taken to interesting places
But anyone could do that for you,
I want to know why you’re with me.

It’s a pretty chilled afternoon, cloudless skies
And the sea is so blue
As blue as lapis lazuli,
You’re on the hammock reading War and Peace
I’m learning how to clean a shotgun
My father’s working on the Peugeot
There’s wet air coming in from the sea,
He’s hoping the salt hasn't started rusting the chrome
You’re hoping you’ll finish that book in one lifetime
I’m hoping you can stay here a few more days.

This
This is our life right now
We could all be roped up, *******, and dead tomorrow
But this
This is our life right now.
A no-strings-attached thing is easy to arrange
It sounds exciting too, seems very straightforward
But sometimes you get caught up in things you don’t expect
Before you know it, you start caring
You develop feelings
You learn things about the other person
Her middle name, her favourite music, food
Her pet peeves, ambitions
You learn her innermost thoughts
Her insecurities, her ****** proclivities,
The little birthmark just above her mons *****
The one that she says looks like a map of the Dominican Republic
You lie in bed with her all day
She teaches you how to swear in Farsi.
You **** her every day.

One day she sees you making out with this random ****** and she flips
You say, but we said no strings attached or did we not?
It’s not as simple as that though, it never is
But this girl, she believes in you
She’s a paragon of patience
She sits you down and tells you to listen to her carefully
She explains to you that now you are sleeping with her on the regular
Your body is somehow her body too, partly, and vice versa
Says she understands that you are not together officially
But intimacy usually comes with an implied exclusiveness.
You say, Ok, I've heard you. And I understand where you’re coming from.
Then you tell her to *******.

Time passes
You begin to miss her.
But you’re pride won’t let you call her.
You have *** three times with two different girls in one weekend
One of those girls has a boyfriend, you **** her in a night club restroom.
The other one on the beach a day after
Then a few hours later in her bedroom.
In the morning her room is all sandy,
Going home you begin reflecting on things
You've learnt one thing for sure:
However much top-shelf ***** you get, it doesn't compare to the love of a good girl
So it doesn't matter how many lovers you have in this world
If none of them give you the world.

You swallow your pride and call her
She can’t make it, she says.
But she comes the next day in the evening.
You explain everything,
How it felt like she was tethering you to her
How you took it all too lightly.
You’re not too good at it, talking about your feelings
You say that what she’d told you that day had gone through one ear, out the other
So you had to learn it all by yourself, you had to go through it
Finally, you apologise.
You’re very sincere.
She asks you, so is this closure?
You don’t want it to be, but you don’t know if you actually deserve her
****, you don’t know if she’d even take you back.
If she does, you've still got a lot to prove.
You’ll be in luck, but you’ll be starting on nothing.
If she doesn't then you knew and blew a good thing.
You’re a book
A book with a convoluted plot, sometimes it’s hard keeping up
I’m slowly trying to learn you
I tread ever-so-care-fully
But when you are naked you are much more complaisant
It feels like we’re on the same page
In the penumbral light of my bedroom I climb on top of you and begin to kiss you
Under the sheets it is as if we are pigeons in the eaves, safe and cosy
Two souls coming together via flesh
My hands reach out for your *******,
They reach out for love.

I see you in a new light.
I see you waking up with me in the first light of the morning
White bed sheets and sleepy smiles, your hair tousled
Your eyes plain, your lips unrouged
You’re skin is soft
We make love and have breakfast outside.
My muse.
The sun rises too fast
I find myself looking at you,
Perfect white teeth and a symmetrical face.
I’m way too fond of you to notice flaws
But if I did, wouldn’t they just serve to particularise your beauty?
It’s alright this, isn’t it?
This kind of connubial life we’re living.

Words are all I have.
I am a poet and you like my tongue
This very tongue that holds the small space between your thighs and makes you tremble,
This very tongue that, you say, sounds very unAfrican-
Why don’t you write like an African child?
Well, it is because of the way I grew up and the where I grew up and the who I grew up with.
Like that? Does that sound African enough?

The first time I took my t shirt off in front of you, you said I was thin
No, no,
I remember exactly what you called me: tubercular.
You are bold. I like that a lot.
But also, you’re kind of a *****.
I am in love with you, the whole of you.
You and your nice smelling hair.
You and your dreamy brown eyes.
You and your half-hearted *******.
I love you
Every night
       (Sometimes twice)
And although I adore
Being drenched in sweat
And shuddering uncontrollably,
The thing I look forward to the most
Is afterwards, falling asleep with you behind my eyes,
Imagining you in my arms,
Taking you with me, into my dreams.
I still love
dousing
your sweater
in oceans of grey
spilling potion on the
sleeve
making it smell of me
wearing it to sleep
each time I don it
I drain a little more
of you
out of my
memory
Daniel Magner 2013
I would liken you
To a night without stars
Were it not for your eyes.
I would liken you
To a sleep without dreams
Were it not for your songs.
I could taste them.
I could taste the rage, the agony, the hatred.
I could taste the love of a mother, slowly leaving me…
One small drop at a time.

And it drove me crazy, as I took a step
Cars racing past me, no one would have time to think
Soon
I would be ‘that girl’,
The girl who couldn’t take it
The girl who ended it all

But as I began to take the last step
Head pounding now
Mind dull
They stopped me

As much as I wanted to believe that it was over
As much as I wanted to believe that I couldn’t feel,
That I couldn’t live
They proved I could

I was drowning now,
But I managed to escape
The taste of my tears
Bringing me back to reality.
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