i've been here all along.
so,
if you've ever felt lonely
it's only because
- in your heart's perfect desire -
             You wanted to be
alone.

Deeper than love, deeper than me
deeper and deeper and deeper she pleads
maybe too deep that I think she's a freak
maybe too deep in the deep-end again
so deep, this time, I come across her weak
hold her close
feel her breathe
chest rise, and rise collapse
at my feet, eclipsed
in her eyes they rinse and hang me
so short lived, I wish
she could still be, I wish she believed
the same wind shaking trees
chopping waves, cools the sea, shifting clouds
til sunray-bounce off your melanin hip
- mountain range in you, snow-capped
dissolving into sea salt-spray
perfume on Cloth
grapes under foot.
I can never confuse one season for her.

-b mafika

Positivity is a wave
which sweeps the surface;
laps at my feet
to then melt
like i did at my mother's
by the fireplace in winter,
then disappear
much like the fireplace
and her warm feet.

Anxiety also lies close to the shore;
it is the wave that throws itself
against the rocks.
I am the rock.

O* fragrant wind float
a flower from Frida's hair
into my heart's crown.

Now swings the jacaranda
with the joy that had ceased to glow:
from the depth of dark blue times
comes violet sweet-singing like old;
the tree never will forget
even in its brightening dreams
the ash-smoke story of how
it once lost all of its leaves:
each a tear: for fond memory,
goodbyes stolen by suffering's thief,
autumn giving no notice
of winter dressed only in grief;
standing lonely in the night
as winds whistle your sad tune
looking up to not believe
while in your spirit's June:
stars are silent explosions
at peace with the still moon;
you are not the moon or sun,
the stars are what's left of you.

Should I wait sometime
to tell her how I feel for her? If so,
when does the coral reef know
when to spawn? They say on the fifth night
after the November full moon. Her birthday
is too far away to see from here; her eyes:
two flashes of light on the horizon.
My mother and sister mentioned I stay still
12 weeks, Lao Tzu said until my mud settles.
Tamia and Charmaine insisted now. I looked
to Rumi, and he smiled back patience.
A patient person does not have to ask how long?
And here I am: counting
the minutes between her texts,
on her replies as breaths;
poring over
the pictures of her - in my hand, in my mind.
One moment she feels close, the next
she is the grain of sand I try to keep in my palm.
Patience is praise, says Rumi.
In it the right action will arise, added Lao Tzu.
That is where I must be, whispers my heart.

Spent the evening
in the restaurant, surreptitiously looking
at distant women between the heads of men
  Games ensued
when I caught some
looking at me
     The eyes are important
     in the connections of us
     I flicked mine: this
     and that way:
tipsy slur in the way I threw the eyes
and the women I was playing with,
like I, playing and talking and playing
the people we were talking to had no clue;
the waitrons waited, the chefs never waiting;
no one had a clue.

Suddenly came a wave,
once silent in the sea of feeling,
and took energy
from every current before its time
then in one great sweep
swooped me and the sand of my spirit,
shaken like a potent drink,
to quake and proclaim to myself:
  There are so many women in the world
much more than men
for so much beauty
how can one ever be committed to only one?

     Always too* patient
I am then they are gone
to live again in my thoughts
resurrected as regret;
I pay for these evenings:
with unquenchable eyes,
with the big-chested wave collapsing into foam,
with the promise of love -
with myself.
This is what life is
to those who wait too* long:
all one ever kissed were eyes
while the ocean erupts
within the chalice of vulnerability
one's lips tremble from a safe distance;
but love never was the dying wave at one's feet.

I am getting closer
and closer
to being able to cry again.
My soul has been an awful drought to my body.
When I cry
again
it will be a great day.
Perhaps even, the greatest in history.

somewhere in my mind
a sky is full of kites
sunflowers blossoming on a hillside
fields of grapes, of my salt mixed with your perfume
my eyes drift across a canvas of waves
on which your warm feet have flattened grapes
into a sea diluted of sadness
stretching far from left to right
and wisping clouds above.
the heart follows timidly behind
approaching cautiously the soft strokes and waves
seeing each kite as an arrow
shot into the air by Cupid's jealous lover
as heaven's golden eye creeps past the mountain,
dips into the ocean
leaves this sky
a sweet, light wine; leaves me tipsy-turvy
while one can't help but believe:
loveliness is a vine mapped out within each
arms can hold, arms can drown
...I await yours.

our bodies, are embers
together, we are a fire.
  our love - smoke
  smoke - our desire

Yes Mr. Hemingway you are right.
I have sat at this desk
and bled, but how much must I bleed
before I can cry?

All this time I have been distant,
and confused the stockpiling of distance
with strength. Pain, blinded me:
I could not see that instead I was building on weak foundations.
Everything collapsed.

Now I am strength-less and can break nothing,
and not myself.
I want so desperately to break these banks
which hold poisoned-water; to cleanse my mind
with my body. But they move awkwardly
past each other-
as if they were once close friends who have since drifted apart.
I need them to say:
Hey my friend
I have missed you;
why did we stand by and watch such a beautiful thing suffocate,
and die?
I need them to hold each other,
in an embrace to bring back to life all lost embraces - heads
in each other's shoulders,
as if heads and shoulders were only ever for this moment.
I need them to cry: relentlessly;
not a moment spared
for Sorry;
tears say enough.

This week has been about:
Devouring, myself, from the inside
chewing at my cheeks, biting my teeth, gritting
so my stomach churned, looking up with eager eyes
wishing, on the strokes of light crossing the sky
to be my direction home
but those were missiles
remnants of the battle for Mind
child of Damascus
I have rolled down hills of peace before
turned back and looked proudly upon a majestic city
ruler of Damascus
I fed myself suffering
chewing air - fantasies of three hers
my real touch arriving so close to each
to either back away or sabotage what was not mine
but opening to me
as if those are destinations, no! they are ends
leading to Damascus
where amongst ruins I still dream my most beautiful dreams
for whole days and nights, my stomach yearns
I implode,
watching hope litter the sky.

Are you a star?
Do you look down every night
and convince the lonely
that they are still life?
Do couples watch you
and, just as silently as the way you blink at them,
fall in love with each other.

Have you,
for centuries
piled on centuries,
sat still and thrown your magic at the sky?,
smiled a tooth-full smile of unrequited love
that shines for people light years after?

Do you sometimes implode?
Yes you do, I have seen it with my own two eyes.
I know you try to hide it:
you implode at a distance
to not hurt those around.

You are a hopeless romantic
who gave birth to a son.
After the sun, there are three stars
held together by gravity:
love must be one, I wish to be one and you the other

though I feel like the sun
on fire: burning with anguish, with the torture
of so many drawn to me but not wanting to touch,
with frustration at my memory forgetting your touch
and longing it at the same time

I feel like the sun; the star you forget is a star
admired from afar, watch him burn from afar:
a beautiful, lonely implosion
a spectacle to the world and its cousins;
gravity is me pulling you closer but unsure of myself
and you looking into a shy fire, afraid to get burnt.

Today I typed into Google
How far are the stars from earth?
I do not think I am a romantic
Surely you would have asked
How close are the stars to us?

Yes You must be a star
and I a city at night with every light turned on.
We catch eyes across this dark field
and you turn away so quickly after
I am Sorry
I have been busy
feeling for the light-switch in every space within me
then I got to where your room would be and it was empty
you had left without saying a word
with trembling soles I followed where your every footstep led
the tracks suddenly disappeared
and tonight you're in a full moon's sky
throwing your magic
smiling with that tooth-full smile
for all else but me
and I am a city
far below
with every light turned on for You.

No-one wants your bruised heart. They
don't want your sinking eyes,
still sinking.
Don't go to them
with your hot-flaccid arms and legs, at the ready to melt - they
are not concerned with the currency of high-sloped waves.
Or the heavy part of the ocean that speaks
only to itself and the sky.

Realise that implosions, for them,
are silent
and boring - now, you are implosions:
your voice, your thoughts, your blockings, constantly
*******.

But sweep it all under some dusty rug, for you
to trip on later, because they
don't want anything of you that is not happy.
Drain your being of all its depths.
Then continue every day as a sculptor: chiselling
  at yourself until you form a smile;
filling your sockets with sand.
Deception is the art they prefer.

to loneliness i seem
bound: it gave me
a soft kiss on the cheek
one night, then just as I could make out its face
scuttled off and I chased
and it hid, within me,
and I chase.
"come out come out
wherever you are", i shout
with the child-like playfulness
sawn off my bones once-upon-a-time
but loneliness feels like it's everywhere
     and the lonely are everywhere
     if one sees being nowhere as a place

my calls turn into a fluttering
fading echo bouncing
off these four walls i'm locked
between, a timbre that I taste
with my ears, and my tongue - bitten
for too long - tries to carve out
a new heart for itself
this time not out of stone.

The moon and me
are not friends.
How can we be if we never speak?
If right now
is the first time, after nineteen evenly spaced years,
that we have taken in each other.

But it seems as though in this (maybe very crucial) moment
we've found each other
- caught eyes across this heavy distance.
Maybe I am sensational and
we look closer to each other than we actually are - it can be a deceptive space.
But I understand the moon: alone
almost always present but rarely noticed; continuously
cutting its shape, so then maybe someone can say:
hey moon, you look nice today.
If I am not sensational then I know you are funny,
moon, but your timing is always wrong
- no one laughs because your jokes come at the day-time's funeral.

Or that is just how I see you.
Good day, moon, sleep tight when the sun comes up.

The world is crowded;
too* many lonely people;
the ones holding
hands take up less space,
or in the least
fill the world more meaningfully.

Eleventh hour has descended
frustration washes over me entirely
the only escape is to forget I am drowning
pearl necklace, diamond ring lost in the sea
Hope of your skin against mine
of your voice being my summertime
sinking while I reach out both desperate arms
expectation unmet is how the river of suffering flows
near, right here next to me, young heads
find young shoulders
and I throw my eyes like an anchor to the floor
arms are linking, lips are hugging, plums are bitten
those offered to me I touch and I wither
all this treasure gathered within me
it would be better to run aground than grind and die right here,
in the middle of the ocean.

A sugartree wants to grow
my heart is the intended field
smothered by a hundred storms
broke the surface and now I can heal
waiting for a certain warmth like your skin
and a breeze sweeping all of me like your breath
my stomach is a bottomless desire for treats:
eyes that wrap one like destiny,
and the wavy line thrown into one's ocean: I love you;
woven into the fabric of my eyelids
these afternoons close on me still, empty
stars flash with my longing
each night I dream your sweetness
humming as the tree hums when swept
in a pre-empting wind:
it is me searching
and not finding.

you might as well be the stars:
you only let me love you from this far
out in a full moon's light I can see the waves
stretch closer than you've ever been to me.
don't talk about galaxies I can't reach
don't talk planets I can't be
every single word burns:
i love you more than you love me
stuck on silly planet earth.

Travel has ruined me.
I live in a desert
Where the people drown themselves
In spirits
And ciders.
Today I visited the sea
It renewed the spell it has on me
So that when I venture out of its sight
Weakness grabs a firm hold of my throat
And pulls me under foaming waves.

But an apology flies
beyond yourself
to land on those places
you never knew you had hurt;
the thread that holds a scar together;
it speaks the language
only wounds and time know
and offers a sweet prose;
- Sorry.

An apology has wings: a white moth
of truth: it flies from the quicksand grave
of self-importance - beyond you - to land
on those barren places you never knew
you had drained of colour; it spins the thread
that winds a scar tight so that it does not grow
into the volcano
holding its shadow hostage
with the threat of eruption,
rather it must be the outline
of a mountain range of memory,
a reminder that beauty builds
its shape from the ugly things it conquered;
sorry - it offers a sweet prose,
speaks the gentle language
only wounds and time know.

i am a star in this play
but with every chance i step closer
so do you edge away.
when will this arm-less waltz end?
on two knees i've asked:
*when can this satellite come back to earth
and spend the evenings navigating you?

An experience
will always be more valuable than a possession.
And how lucky you are
to have both at once, for
I have long-since given myself to you.

I want to sign my signature on her lips
so subtly; they are my lips
tongue as the pen, and saliva as the ink
quick! then jump overboard
into the ocean of her light
become the navy-blue wave collapsing
on those precious feet
and let my everything sink
deep into the many colours of this love.

I listen to your music,
look at your art,
become jealous;
wishing someone
could love me
the way you love
her, wishing someone
could write a song about me,
paint a picture of my smile;
rationale
in a long sentence
unwinding to say
    you are beautiful
    and I love you.

I wait for sweet rains
anticipation broken
by my surrender.

Cool breeze ***** the line.
Words dry under the sun
as I wave goodbye.

i love only
the ocean
and nearly myself