I have seen the boy tear at the stitches his shadow sowed,
You are an old man who I have neither a need, nor a want of anything,
I have seen lungs gasp for air while the stupid ******* drowned you,
Hidden in the Old Mill, left to drink Complan and ***** nightmares,
I have seen your mother dying whilst she was making the children sandwiches from her bed,
The Lost Boys forgot, grew old and had Lost Boys of their own,
I have seen you try to fly from the world which is now on your shoulders, whilst the eagle circles in the sky you dreamt of,
The storm of madness continually crashes against our walls of concrete and imagination,
I have seen failure after successive failure wave to me from those eyes,
A father and a husband locks himself alone when the sentiment kicks his guts,
I have seen a head wrenched back to the barrage of pills and pain by wretched Ephialtes and his like,
Running from the hospital because they want more blood,
I have seen you scared, naked and drinking toilet water,
Everything went blue and time slowed down in riotous Belfast,
I have seen ****** and *****

We nursed our bruised bodies and mutinous minds from themselves,
I have seen late night talks of tears but freeing none whilst brooding on Dundee benches,
You misunderstand my intentions but I do not blame you,
I have seen petrified thoughts begging for company, abandoned to fight the lonely nights,
In dark rooms full of empty Coke cans and never-to-be-used condoms,
I have seen the miscarried baby and the aborted foetus and I have wept in secret over dreams of their lamented birthdays,
Prodigies of stardust and walking infinity,
I have seen a baby boy born into dyslexia, depression and death,
Reflections meander on the television with maddened eyes and religious fists,
I have seen the bite marks on my own arms as Fenrir knaws at his chains,
Graveyard whispers cry of Elliott Smith and James Dean,
I have seen the suicide note torn into pieces, but put aside ready to be glued back,
My brothers Icarus, Atlas and Prometheus all shake their heads in dismay,

I have seen friends and strangers and imagined all lives unlived,
Felt every tear I have not cried, cried every tear I have not felt,
I have seen the life that will never be and thereby choose not to live,
Sing a requiem for futures lived,
In the present now passed into the past,
I have seen prison bars,
I have seen closing doors without handles, hinges or keyholes,
I have seen the invisible voice,
I have seen beaten tracks leading nowhere,
I have seen blue eyes stare back from the abyss,
As soon as see me, gone,
I have seen forests of my mind burning,
I have seen the scorched mattress,
I have seen a lifeline on your wrist dying to live,
I have seen Ragnarok,
I have seen too much and felt not enough,
Though I could bear no more

Holy Trinity of death, divorce and debt,
Haunt the adult-minded children,
Manifest the shroud of sorrow around you,
As if a shield of darkness unto all light,
My legs are not yet buckled but do sink with every blinded step,
I have seen words upon pages but not felt the anguished breath slap me as you scream them in my face,
I have seen everything and nothing, that which has and has not,
I have seen things never to have been, be,
I have seen things never to have happened, happen,
I have seen a woman **** for feelings that never come,
I have seen her undress me with her stare and then blink,
I have seen a forgotten man escape his crazed mind by losing it,
I have seen him in love with ghosts that are not dead,
I have seen children fading from photographs that do not exist,
I have seen them lost in a Neverland that never was,
I have seen; now please let me see no more, not ever,
Now I am lost,
Now I have seen enough,
Please no more, not ever,
I have seen enough.
I have seen enough.

What if I find someone who sings me to sleep every night
But I still hear your voice even in a crowded room?

What if I find someone who makes my heart beat so fast that it might burst
But my breathing almost stops every times you walk by?

What if I find someone whose touch is as warm as the blanket
But I can't drink my morning coffee without thinking about your brown orbs?

What if I find someone who takes me to another world with his spell
But I can't even  imagine myself being in different picture with you?

*Darling,
What if you have found someone new,
But I can't even get rid of your shadow?

I'm in Greece. The sun light streamed like tears
upon the feeble trees that gnarled onto rivers here.
Nearby the rose laid slightly on this grass and sidewalk ,

I met you, Maria

here.

So I think of you slightly,
everyday, and remember.

The black onyx rock houses, and the dinner we said hello,
the wet blue jacket covered you, as much as my compliments.
The thoughts of your smile, and the subtle game and glow,
your heart flashed near mine and I do verily lament.

For see, you were quite perfect, refined, wise, yet lovely,
and the little emotion of memories, you held me so free.
Even in my brokenness, you carried me so kindly and softly.
The spirit is silver, yet I withheld my heart from you.

So our heart grew broken like buildings
under fire,

I miss you.

I remember you so kindly, the small talk, the subtle smiles.
Like a cathedral of glass, I hold you in my memories and pray for seven heavenly angels to cover you, heal you, remember you.

In the shadows between the red, gold, yellow, and grace

Like the rose my prayers shelter you Maria,
by my longing hope and with the beauty of memories.

So that we both will sing a new song and finally let go.

The last thing the Poet feels of her is the distinctive taste of biltong. It lingers. She had bought two packets at the café.  Their last kiss is made just before the airplane announces itself with a great roar of being. He watches it swallow her and turn her into a memory. And then the plane flies away. He can’t find a silver lining in the plane’s path, so he instead focuses on the gentle return of normality to his skin. Every centimetre that was previously pressed to his Muse is smoothing its goose bumps. The Poet’s heart goes back from verse to prose, just as how it was before she became the subject of his pen.

He turns to say an awkward “dumela” to the Muse’s grandmother. She responds with the tone of a grandmother greeting a boy who has just been making out with her granddaughter in front her: “dumela.” It probably doesn’t help that his hair isn’t combed. It probably doesn’t help that they have not met before. The Poet then asks the Muse’s brother for a ride to school. Now that the Muse is gone, it is time for him to begin studying for the colourless exams that were the subject of his existence before her. The Muse’s brother nods in agreement, and he walks out of the stale atmosphere of the airport with her family. The summer sunshine somehow manages to feel uninspired.

The journey from the airport stretches out like a goodbye that ought not to happen. It is slow, painful, and filled with empty promises of hope from her family. Her brother says she will visit during the Christmas season. The Poet knows she won’t- she can’t- but he has enough novels to keep him company.  They are riding in the same little red Volkswagen that often picked her up from school. If time is simultaneous, she is sitting next to him.

The car is full; time has only one direction, and its wheels stops in front of the school gates.

He says his farewells, closes the car door, and limps to the library to start working on maths equations with his classmates. He barely opens the library doors, barely greets his classmates, and with barely practiced nonchalance, barely explains that his Muse went off to another country. He picks up his scientific calculator and clicks open his pen to attack a math problem. Hours pass in numbers that stubbornly refuse to make sense in place of her. The Poet solves a problem, and then he doesn’t. He asks for help, and then he doesn’t. He laughs with his classmates, and then he doesn't: they have to go home now for lunch.

The Poet cannot go home. He has to wait for his mother to pick him up. He decides to walk out the school gates to eat at the Chinese restaurant. It is placed conveniently outside the school. He orders some dumplings and some noodles, and then tells the waitress that he is going to buy a newspaper at the filling station while he waits for his meal.

At the filling station counter are packets of biltong hooked onto a stand.

Words you say,
Have a tendency to reach under my skin,
Like an infected I.V I cant pull out
Phrases and insults burning on your tongue
Shoot sparks and burn those that don't deserve
The treatment you're giving them

You can't hide your true colors anymore
I truly know your heart is black
And you live in a colorless world
While mine remains
Full of hues
And views of places
Far away

He lingered on in the cold,
her voice to his ear;
saving him
from the frostbite of a lonely earth.

All on her own,
all on that phone,
he heard her soft and
held out to reach her
against the bitter cough
of nature’s cold.

His heart his mind it
beats of it,
thinks of it;
them.
And therefore it,
because of it;

he speaks to sleep then.

Like a tree,
With many leaves-

I wasn't the only one.