I am scared to let myself feel vulnerable for you:

See,
My heart’s been tortured by your kind before-
So I lay bricks of mistrust and hurt around it
Because even once-
Is one too many times for me
To feel so very deeply,
The unrequited touches on my frayed skin.

They say that drowning is the worst way to die,
But what if I willingly dive into the sea of blue
that is your eyes…

Would that still count as suicide?

Do you ever think of me,
Half as many times as I do you?
Because I often wonder:

Are we still friends in the dark,
Or do you also hear the loudness of my heartbeat
reverberating through my chest-
For you?

By: Lulwama K. Mulalu (.15)

Sometimes I think that love toys with me because she knows just how easy it is to break me. If I could sing of all the ways in which she got me wrong, or fumbled on her timing, god ****** my vocal chords would rip themselves out- because I sure wouldn't have the strength to. I surrender; I am waving the white flag because I am defeated by her lack of empathy. Why does she give only to take? Is it because my child-like-heart still refuses to learn from the many mistakes that I've made?

But...

Innocence doesn't know any better than to look for comfort and warmth in open spaces, doesn't bother to use a compass to find out where exactly it's running to, or even understand that not everybody who holds my hand is worth bleeding out for.

The other day love came through my doors unannounced: she was livid and shouting obscenities, demanding me to tell her what exactly it was that I wanted from her. What.did.I.want. from.her? The audacity-

Dear love,

Where were you when the entire house of cards that we built and called home, came crashing down? You know, I still haven't managed to pick out the small pieces of your betrayal from the hallowed out spaces between my bruised ribs. As it turns out, you actually can't fashion a future out of tattered faith and recycled paper just like you said.

YOU'RE A SUFFOCATOR: my lungs are burned and black because I'm still breathing in smoke from the previous fires that you started. How dare you leave my mouth parched, constantly thirsty for something sweeter than your bitter endings! That is not fair. I found out years too late that blind trust is really not the same as following you, mind shut, into the dark. (And just to let you know, you actually never did explain the difference between "white lies" and "half truths" right.)

I'm exhausted. But I guess constantly having to search for meaning in empty conversations will do that to a person. I followed your voice here because I thought that that was what you wanted me to do. Well, wasn't it?...

If you stop singing the blues for me,  I promise I'll stop blaming you for my river of tears. When I was younger my father taught me that "pain only builds character", and so I will take all **** that you've put me through and paint it a nice gold. To be fair, I must commend you for a valuable lesson I've learnt:
******* do come packaged quite nicely don't you think?

P.S I would really like my running shoes back.

Yours,

I had to strip you bare
Of all your convictions
Because you had no choice
But to wear the weight of the world
On your broken back

I watched as you cried
Rivers upon rivers in the desert
Because life had given you no choice
But to save your dying garden
With the only water that you had left

The heaviness of standing up straight
Became too much for your swollen feet;
So instead:

You stand limply with a spine crooked
From the many dry days you spend,
back curled over,
And head hanging towards the earth-simply praying for the rain

I heard them whisper the stories
About the screams they ignored
That came from other side of the door
Of the house you grew up in:

So tell me,
was it your husband or your father
That frightened you more?
(Because they never said...)

Your mother always told you that
Roses could never bloom in the desert-
But you ploughed in dusty soils anyway,
Hoping that love would grow on the pain
The rains had not washed away yet

It seems that the sun had willed itself
To burn down everything that you owned-
So with calloused and cracked hands
You dug deeper into the ground
In search of anything to put the fires out

I heard you lamenting for rain
In that dischorded voice of yours;
But no matter how many tears you wept
Or however many prayers that you sent,
They were just never enough
To make flowers bud in the desert.

By: Lulwama K. Mulalu

China doll with a porcelain white face,
How your smile is soft but fading.
Your eyes little doll, are dark and hollowed;
They speak only of a soul waning.

China doll with such dainty, fragile hands,
Why is it you stand so limply with a broken back?
I found you in the dark with hands tightly chained,
Is that how they became so bruised and so black?

China doll in your lovely yellow dress,
Your mouth was sewn shut by your owner:
She with her invisible strings became your master;
And you in your silence, her prisoner

How impeccably imperfect you are-
Your creator left a crack upon your face:

Of all the dolls she put on display,
You, China, are her special make.

Paint the world with words and the world will become your canvas.

By: Lulwama K. Mulalu

With a broken Hallelujah,
I sang you to sleep;
And at your wake,
Eulogized the many marathons
That you ran to find yourself,
Or scurried haphazardly,
After the self that you struggled to keep.

You know I waited for you,
Up on that mountain top?
While you searched tirelessly,
Almost desperately,
For that pin drop silence,
In the midst of all the cacophony.

By: Lulwama K. Mulalu

An origamist took my heart,
folded it into a thousand pieces
and then called it art.

By: Lulwama Kuto Mulalu