The person you meet
and who they end up being,
are never the same.

My car
had been
drizzled
in honey
coloured
leaves
during the
night.

My son
and I
made a
spectacle
of how
the gold
fluttered
off into
the wind,
like a
hundred
monarch
butterflies
through
grey
streets.

I tilt
the rear
view mirror,
waiting for
lights to
change.

His soft,
buttery face
reflected
back at
me.

I wonder
how it's
possible
that such
a small
person
has the
power
to halt
the sand
through an
hourglass,
to awaken
sunflowers
by the
moon,
to derive
nectar
from a
stone.

What other
name
is there
for a
person
of such
power
than that
of a bird
which
arises
from its
own
ashes.

I wrote poetry in the pages of my book
and my son scribbled over it
         I wondered who really made
                  more sense.

They say our eyes are biggest in our childhood
and cease to grow thereafter.
I speculate it's because the older we get,
the less we see.

A cloud never
entertains
the same shape
from point a
to point b.

And if they did
would we even
bother to lie
in the grass
anymore?

There's a reason
many of the best
thinkers in history
took off into nature
often.

She never forgets
what humanity
has long ago
forgotten.

We would not
tape leaves
to a tree
to stop her
leaves from
falling.

Or barricade
the ocean
to stop
her ride
from rising.

Or push
the sky
to prevent
a storm.

But we do it
to ourselves
and each other
every day.

"You're a good mummy,"
he told me
"you give me food
every night."

I thanked him,
told him how happy
his words made me,
but I began to cry.

Images of mothers,
some place else,
somewhere I am not,
flooded me.

Images of mothers
whose children
cry out in hunger.

Images of mothers
who hold their children close
because they have
nothing else to give.

I don't know how it feels
to tell a child
they cannot eat
for a third day
in a row.

I don't know how it feels
to watch as your child's ribcage
becomes more defined.

I don't know how it feels
to be truly helpless.

I cry,
for the image of mothers
whose tears remain unheard.

That maybe someone
might hear me
and ask why.

Red pill.                           Blue pill.

               Both look pink
    under rose-tinted glasses

A Sunday morning
was never made for seeing
the morning at all.

Today we had sxx.
One minute, two minutes, three...
A round of applauds.

We sat
on the edge
of the kitchen bench,
like most evenings
and shared stories
from our days.

My love,
his eyes
a mirror
for his weary mind.

It's only Monday
he says
watching
Kenny dance
inside a glass.

**** Kenny.
He's no good.

Why are you so sad?
he asks.
I smile and say
because I'm me!
and throw my arms to the sky
like my own personal curtain call.

He sips from his glass,
no longer dancing
and replies
that's a much simpler answer.

I leap from the bench
and embrace him,
cradle his head
to my cold
and bony
shoulder.

20/5/16

Desires are a tricky thing. They never stop expanding.
I remember the times I would daydream endlessly about having what I have now, and when you think of it like that, being so caught up in future desires so that you are unable to appreciate what’s right in front of you seems a very big waste of life. For what is the purpose of desires if you cannot appreciate their fruition?
Desires will always lead to the birth of new desires, but to learn to relish in the present abundance while manifesting the future is key, and will bring forth the utmost gratitude, and thus happiness.

I danced
under savage flame
and the sound
of wood splitting.
I could not see
that I burned down the house
until the moon set
and I stood cold
amidst charcoal
that crumbled
in my palms.

The books we read,
vinyls we spun,
letters we wrote,
clung to my skin
like a crime scene.

He was blackened too -
watching from afar
as I danced
and sowed gasoline
over everything
he loved.

He was blackened too -
and crumbling
within my palms.
Waiting from afar
for the last ember
to die.

I burned down the house.
Again.

But he picked me up
and carried me
to our bed.
Scorched -
where we cried in agony
at a whisper
across our skin.

Every sunrise
we're washing the charcoal
from the sheets
and purging cinder
from our lungs.
Planting seeds
where foliage
was lost.

We wait now
for the day
the flames in our eyes
become another Polaroid.
For the day
we can laugh
at how I burned down the house,
and finally saw
the mxthxrfxckxr crumble.

Yet still,
he doesn't
break.

Most mornings we awaken
by the call of your alarm.
You groan, rub your face,
and get ready for work.
I cuddle my son a while longer.

Occasionally you'll hit snooze
over and over.
You don't mind being late.
The touch of your hands
grazes my skin and caress my *******.
We curl together
and slip slowly into the morning.

Every so often
you'll spring out of bed like a hurricane.
A missed alarm.
You curse my son
for keeping you up all night
and hasten to your car.

Every morning
I'll splash cold water on my face
while coffee brews in the kitchen.
I stir two spoons of sugar,
and look to the basil on the windowsill.
She's happy as long as I water her.
I wish I was that simple.

My words cannot write you
the way I wish they could.
I can write about the day we met.
I can tell you about the cold Winter afternoon you met a young mother and her son in the park,
and how you endured the brisk winds for hours just to see me in the flesh.
I can describe the green plaid jacket you wore,
hoping it would keep your bones from chilling.
I know it didn't.
You're a Summer man,
and I can write about that.

I can retell our memories,
paint idyllic pictures of beach weekends.
Our skin glistening from the heat,
wind pouring through the windows of your car that's as old as you,
hoping it would keep us cool.
It didn't.
That Summer you taught my son how to love the water,
only to have the fear return threefold a year later.
I could write about that in two words: you're persistent.

My words can retell every fight we've ever had,
breathe life back into the 'he said she said' of our history.
We've apologised (mostly me)
and we've forgiven (mostly you).
With my words I've already told of your persistence.
Words are beautiful like that.
And I've birthed beauty through them,
but I've also bred sorrow.
This I know through your words,
but mostly from the things that speak louder than any combination of letters ever could.
Your expression.
Your tears.
Your silence.
Sometimes silence is too loud to bear.

I can write in vain about you,
and I do,
more often than I'll admit.
Hoping for redemption, maybe,
or justification.
Long words only convolute a story further.

But I can't write about you
the way I wish I could.
There are no words.
No words for your smile.
No words for your laugh.
No words for your quirks or your sense of humour.
No words for your flaws and imperfections.
I can write in vain about all the things that make up You,
but there's no words for love.
I'll keep trying though,
and I do.
More often than I'll admit.

I've never been fond
of the colour red.
I found it loud,
inexhaustible.
Arrogant.
I felt small around red,
an anger
that I was neither loud,
inexhaustible,
nor arrogant.

I found a home
in grey
and they called me
the grey woman,
equal parts white,
and black.
Neither here,
nor there.
Quiet,
passive,
contemplative.

How does
a grey woman
navigate a world
built for red men?

I met a man,
who was a fan
of Pink Floyd
who reminded me
that pure white
is a rainbow
and from then
I no longer saw grey
as equal parts
white and black.

Now I paint
my nails red
and lay down beside
that Pink Floyd man
every night.

He reminds me of red.
That's why I like him.

The generation
of more self-help bestsellers
than people willing
to self-help themselves,
but will Google-search
"how to stop self sabotaging"
after a friend of a friend
tagged another friend
in a Facebook article,
once.

We pay some expensive *******
with a piece of paper
in a frame
to tell us
what we already know,
but your mental health
is a good investment,
right?

It's nice to believe
that humans can be
akin to the übermensch,
and such supremacy
can be achieved
with therapy,
with healing,
with pretty little pills.

It's easier to accept
we are jaded,
than admit
we were born to be
our own devil.

Just watch
as Mother Nature devours
her own children
by flame,
and maybe we'll begin to see
that we were created
to die a hundred times over
at the end of
our own hands.

If the shadow of a loss remains,
is it really desolate?
Where the mind fills the emptiness of a desire,
does it exonerate?
"Things can be two things."
Riddled with crypticism,
in vain,
I entertained
an eagerness to negate.
Then in both his absence
and absent presence
I finally conceived how right
he was (is)
all along.

See the man
Adorned in black?
My home,
    is there.

Smile,
A white picket fence.
My place,
    my home of rest.

Somewhere
Afar.
My home
    I sought.

Silver linings,
Adversities,
My home
    I found

Surrender, I did,
At a gaze.
My heart, I tried.
    Believe me I tried...

"Sieze! Raid!"
Ablaze the home!"
My heart, no,
    one needs a home.

"Surrender!
Any will do!"
My heart, no,
    home is You.

"See that man?
Adore him you do."
My heart, it spoke
    of home and you.

Somehow,
An absurd world,
My heart
    a compass to you.

So like that,
A home became
My love,
    my love, a home.