I am unlovable.
Easily broken
like the glass that shattered
long before I even touched it.
I am war-
too volatile to handle,
too unpredictable to wait for
so I told you to run,
take nothing with you
(except for regret)
for it will only slow you down
and I don’t have time to warn you twice.

Why would you choose to stay?

Years later
I’m still sitting in my aloneness
in a home built out of paper mache and sweat
anger and hate weighing comfortably in my aching belly-
I am only vengeful towards my body,
and it knows that.

I spit fires from my tongue,
setting borders alight
because unbounded
is the only way that I’ll have you Love-

You know just how it is that I like my coffee.

Bloodied walls
and broken hands,
I’ve been building this staircase for a while now.

…I’m just looking to ask god why…

You asked me if I was ready
and I told you that my pain wasn't done baking yet
I am still dancing with the shadows of my demons-
I am open wounds that refuse to heal.

I want to feel your breath on my skin
but I am afraid of how it deeply it will scar
because every time you touch me,
I bleed.

My lungs started collecting dust
on a shelf somewhere:-
collapsed from the heaviness of mistrust
and almost apologies-
Yes, my mother did warn me about men
that creep in and out women’s chests at night.

So go on and make a home out of her,
I’m no use to you like this.
I am bloodshed.
I am war.
Too volatile too handle,
and too unpredictable to wait for.
My pain isn’t done baking yet,
but I will wait by the waters until it does.

I am alright in my own solitude…

I’ll make poetry out it.


By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu

these fingers don’t seem big enough
to catch all your losses
and my pockets are filled to the brim with shame
so forgive me when I say that
i can’t love you right now
because I put my happiness in a bottle
marked
“for emergencies only”

it seems that
in the midst of all the chaos
i misplaced my faith again
in the juxtaposition of your embrace
and my inability to heal
so i hailed a cab for you
because it me killed more to
watch you stay suffering
in this fragmented
and disillusioned
version of reality

years from now
i’ll still be constructing a self
that is less destructive than this
within the boundaries
of crumbling walls
and absent apologies
that keep the pain flowing in

the reason that I stopped
looking for your blue dress
in the blur of blank spaces
is because
i broke my kaleidoscope long ago
searching for the better version of me
that could convince you to
come back home
once more

since then
my heart has known only
the indifference of your presence
because I stopped calling out for you
in crowded streets filled broken souls
such as myself
poor people digging for meaning
and rainbows
in colourless conversations
trying to please an insatiable hunger
forgetting that our bellies
are already swollen
with disappointment and anger

By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu

Twelve O’clock;
two hands
frozen.

And how time did stand still
–so still.
To allow us
to live
more,
to linger
just a little bit longer
in a kiss-
born from so lustful a longing,
it simply made the world
stop
for a while.

And in those non seconds
of sheer silence
I finally caught my breath
again,
and again,
and again,
and again.

By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu

I saw the dam wall struggle
underneath all the weight
of the water
we said to have been
"under the bridge”-

Still,
I thought that the floods
would not have arrived so soon
in the early days
of summer:

all those fostered feelings of
worthlessness,
and anger
came rushing back,
like pent up pressure
in too small a space,
pushing hard
against
the crumbling walls
of my current state
of unhappy,

              entropy maybe?

I don’t know.

By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu

Yes-
You walked into this
knowing that
you would get burned.

But still you touched
with already blistered,
and charcoaled hands
because
once
is never enough
for children to truly comprehend
the lessons
their mothers taught
them

Don’t play with fire sweetheart
for your heart will turn into
ash
once
her
ambers
go out.

You choked on the heat
of your desires
after they went up in flames,
setting your insides ablaze
and of course
with help always arriving
a second too late-
who could
save you
from the firestorm
that had just
erupted
in the shallows
of
your mind?

So don’t play with fire sweetheart,
because you will get burned.

The smoke will
char your lungs,
leaving
you panicked
for release.

And lust will do that-

It will
set alight
everything it touches
destroying
anything unwanted,
that even dares
to stand in its way.

Arson is a crime.


By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu

I want to leave a map of
Butterfly Kisses on your chest:-

I will delicately press my lips against your tender skin
And trace an intricate pathway of gentle poetry from
the very tips of your hair,
to the bottoms of your feet;
I want to make sure that
whenever your smile wanders off somewhere into the night,
it can always
re-trace its footsteps back home…
to me

I want to leave a map of
Butterfly Kisses on your chest:-

Itty bitty breadcrumb words and metaphors
To remind your next lover
(as a precaution)
Just how it is that you like your coffee.

I want to place the alphabet in your mouth
So that every time you kiss her-
You can tell her your story.

I will hide little poems
In the crevices of your mind
And anecdotes between
the hallowed out spaces on your spine
for you to remember
me
when you walk out the door
for the last time.

By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu