My brush is full of
fall-in-love hues.
cinnamons and cardamom,
   rich garnets buried inside rocks
     that have yet-to-be cracked
   open.

my hand is full of
tiny thoughts,
  the color leather & lapis
lazuli,
where the south is leaning up her chin
to give the north a kiss.

I'm going to
present you with the colors
like a row of
exotic spices-
expensive, condensed, the palate,
this palette,
of every world I can see you
in.

14 | 31 Poems for August 2016

In my mind, I can still hear you singing Born Sinner out loud.
I’m patiently pursuing purpose; I hope I’m making you proud.
I’m glad that I got the chance to know someone like you.
I’ve acquired the skill to transform simple words into beautiful poetry but there’s a few people that still doubt.
But those that doubt me and my words will soon believe.
Death is a bit like love, sometimes we don’t see it coming.
We never do, no matter how many melancholic memories we endure or how much pain we go through.
You never let anyone negatively alter you, you chose to stay true.
It may be too late but for that I salute you.
In my darkest days you always pulled me through.
It may be too late but for that I humbly thank you.
Now that you’re gone, my eyes have been barbed by pain and sorrow.
All the time I have is borrowed so I can’t be too worried about tomorrow.
You always danced to life’s rhythm, you were one to never press pause.
In my darkest hours I take the time to let your memory shine.
At least I got the chance to love and know someone like you.
You’ve slipped away and nothing can fill this pain.
I didn’t get the chance to say all I had to say.
I wasted too many hours and now it’s too late.
You’re gone now, living in a better place.
You’re gone now and I can no longer find you.
So in my darkest hours I’ll always take the time to let your memory shine.
I hope to feel the warmth of your presence in all the broken parts of me.
In my mind, I can still hear you singing songs by Emeli Sandé out loud.
I’m patiently pursuing purpose; I hope I’m making you proud.
The world may have taken you away but at least I had the chance to love you.

15 | 31 Poems for August 2016

Days gradually getting longer while circles keep growing smaller.
I’m alone in this crowded city but I know that it’s only temporary.
Time is wasted, I guess the clock had too much to drink last night.
Began treating society like varsity, I started not to care if I was accepted.
Dreams I once promised myself to pursue are now forgotten and neglected.
Even if things don’t always go my way, I just hope that everything will be okay.
Sometimes I feel closer to my dreams but then I wake up and realise that it was all in my sleep.
According to my frame of reference, dreams delayed may always feel like dreams denied.
Now I have to put on hold stories about success that urgently need to be told.
Too many times the world has made me feel like an abandoned church, but in your eyes I’ll always be a cathedral.

My confidence levels are getting lower and lower; I can feel it in my sleep.
I’m slowly progressing but progressing nonetheless but I still feel like I’m disappointing myself.
I’m doing my utmost best, the worst thing you could do is compare me to someone else.
I’m still holding on no matter how bad it gets; it hurts but I try my best not to let my frustrations show.
I can’t carry on like this though, eventually I’ll have to let everything go.
Eventually I’ll have to let go and forget everything I ever wanted to be.
Days gradually getting longer while impatient frustrations get the best of me.

17 | 31 Poems for August 2016

I understand the fact that I am not always easy to understand.
Loving me is complicated and maybe that’s the beauty of it all.
I never really knew how to handle this beautiful thing called love.
So I always thought that someone would be able to show me how.
“You’re not easy to love” are words I’ve heard too many times before.
My hyperhidrosis is evident but how long will you keep on looking?
I know that my smile is flawed and crooked but it’s worth the picture still.
Let me write my wrongs until I’m right within but where should I begin?
Walking through a graveyard littered with my ideas and thoughts.
Littered with my endeavours of trying to be someone worthy of your love.
You don’t believe in me so who am I to tell the world about our story?
Just another spoken-word poet from Pretoria trying to attain his glory.
These words are written with great effort but you never pay attention anyway.
You know that I’ve got hyperhidrosis but I try not to sweat the small stuff.
I never really knew how to handle this beautiful thing called love.
So I always thought that someone would be able to show me how.
“You’re not easy to love” are words I’ve heard too many times before.
My hyperhidrosis is evident but how long will people keep on looking?
I know that my smile is flawed and crooked but it’s worth the picture still.

18 | 31 Poems for August 2016

I want soulful conversations filled with happiness, love and laughter.
A little bit of red wine, Sade, Jill Scott and Erykah Badu will do.
Time is wasted so I patiently wait for the clock to get sober eventually.
The sincerity of my words is embedded in the movement of my verbs.
Hope you learn to love your thick thighs and those beautiful brown eyes.
I want to hold you in my arms until you forget what loneliness feels like.
I read your body like the pages and chapters of a novel that I never want to stop reading.
Reading the lines on a woman’s skin is poetry and too many men are illiterate.
So they will never truly understand the fact that liberty begins with literacy.
If you incorporate piano keys into my heartbeat, then I promise that you will fall in love with the melody.
I want soulful conversations filled with happiness, love and laughter.
A little bit of chardonnay, Maxwell, Jill Scott and Erykah Badu will do.
The world is nothing without you, the world is blurry without my muse.
Hope you learn to love your thick thighs and those beautiful brown eyes.
I don’t have much but I have you and with God on my side how can I lose?

21 | 31 Poems for August 2016

The cuts on her wrists help to express the feelings she cannot put into words.
Despite the pain she feels,  she feels the urge to constantly hurt herself again.
I want to be her sunshine through the rain and be her love through the pain.
She once said "Self-hurt became the only way to cope, I'm hanging by a thread and I hope no one cuts the rope."
Maybe no one will ever truly understand the type of love and happiness that she has begun to humbly demand.
The teenage girl who cuts herself knows that morphine cannot ease her pain.
She bleeds every night and believes that her scars will make her feel all right.
She has been tirelessly walking around with the burden of a broken heart.
She uses countless razor blades just to refrain herself from falling apart.
Mom doesn't know because during the day her scars don't clearly show.
Carefully concealed to avoid the eyes of prying friends, she'd rather converse with a stranger.
Inflicting pain on herself became the only way to cope, she's hanging by a thread and hopes that no one cuts the rope.
The teenage girl who cuts herself is trying to exorcise the demons she has regrettably danced with.
She has wounds a Band-Aid cannot cover and experiences pain that morphine cannot dissipate.
The teenage girl who cuts herself is patiently waiting for love to dominate.
The cuts on her wrists help to express the feelings she cannot put into words.
She believes that her marks and scars will eventually make everything all right.
The day she embraced God's love, her demons questioned the value of their existence.

20 | 31 Poems for August 2016

I began writing this at exactly 03:58 a.m. on a Sunday morning while listening to Charles de Gaulle to JFK by Bas.
Lately I write my most honest pieces during the early hours of Sunday mornings while everyone is still fast asleep.
Wonder what the view is like from Charles de Gaulle to JFK, 30 000 feet in the air.
But anyway, you and I still got bad blood between us like sickle-cell anaemia.
Reminiscing back when I used to be close friends with a girl named Amelia.
Guess we drifted apart as soon as I moved back to Pretoria, maybe the distance dismantled our friendship.
I’ve decided to do this all alone and if anyone’s coming along then let them come along.
I wish I could drift way with the scent of this cup of coffee but a few minutes from now it’ll be colder than your shoulder.
Always wondered if you’d head to Cape Town to go study at that school of brand leadership we always talked about.
But you chose to stay at the Pretoria campus because of certain unforeseen circumstances.
In 2014 I got accepted but unfortunately the tuition was too high like Wiz Khalifa and my mother couldn’t afford it.
That’s why I may have the perception that dreams delayed will always feel like dreams denied.
I’ve been praying for three whole years for a miracle, adjusted my faith and became more spiritual but still nothing has changed.
Guess I’m just young and unlucky; my hands are freezing and my heart is bleeding.
Navigated through space and time just to find the time to give you space.
Words unspoken make way for a silent devotion, this whole thing hurts but I try my best not to let my emotions show.
Wonder what happened, we suddenly stopped talking several months ago.
Maybe you have changed, I just hope that you’ve changed for the better.
I am slowly falling apart and all I can think about is gathering the pieces of my broken heart together.
Maybe you have changed for the better, I guess no one works that hard to stay the same.
My hands are freezing and my heart is bleeding, this whole thing hurts but I try my best not to let my emotions show.

Suicide should only be committed once*
So why the hell do I try every couple months
Something's up with the water
I don't feel the rush like I used to
There's no happiness tutorials on YouTube
I laced together my shoes, through them on a wire and convinced myself to sit and think
The kitchen sink's dishes stink
But you are what you eat and I had a helping of insane

Low key lowlife, broke and high under a spotlight
No ice so there's more drink at the drive thru window with my eyes suspiciously low
I'm ridiculously close to laughing what's left of my mind away
I forgot how it feels to feel fine today
It's either *love or hate and there's no areas of gray

*I wish I had a thousand hours to sit down and figure out exactly what the **** that I've been running from
I wish someone would stick around long enough to identify with the place that I'm coming from