To come from the line of a man who tamed the snakes
Gazed into the fire
And breathed life into wombs of women
Dying to be the shell
Broke down plants till they became medicine
Healed the hands he touched,

And what am I but a vessel of his life,
A broken one?
His blood must have ran right through me
Like the monotony of a lecture
In one ear and out the other

And to think of those with one choice, already chosen for them
When I have freedom

My freedom is prison
The clock moves forward
Everyday
it keeps taking me back
to that loneliest hour
I can’t stop breathing, even if I tried

Something in the air just weighs me down
A flower watered to death.

Sometimes I feel like I’m in the midst of a junk yard
***** junk yard girl
I’m part of all the scrap metal
Rusting away
Under the gentle yet violent embrace of such a ridiculously big sun, so powerful and on top of us
It’s no wonder summers make it so hard to breathe...
Then again so does the brisk wind, in a bitter winter

You can’t win.

I imagine myself immersed in the sand of a desert
the sand enters my cuticles till they explode
let me just bleed
In total
Peace

Letting the sand run through my fingers, just for a brief moment

I can control time.

Like popcorn stuck in your molars
While the smooth butter just lathers up your taste buds
I live feeling bipolar

Nostalgia can ******* away
with a high so strong
It makes me want to live

Maybe it’s the magic of those late 90’s cartoons glaring through my tv screen

Sugary cereals before they were so bad for you

Maybe it’s how people seem, from the distance of time

Like an alien
I roam around this life that is mine
Advanced enough to blend in
Curious enough to stand out looking lost.


-Sindi Kafazi

Gin and tonic please
Gin and tonic please
I just want to bathe in it

She gets hypnotic

At the bar


Away from the
Bar

Actually,
IN the bar,

Just mindlessly staring at
The shapes of a woman sitting on the wood

En

Stool



I can feel it now
like a ****** toons character,  getting hit really hard
The little stars circulating my head...
There’s stars in my eyes, a glow of the iris and a pupil that looks like a freshly polished shoe
I know how I look when I’m drunk okay?

Do you?

I know how I look when I’m drunk, okay?
Do you?

Do you ever look in the mirror?

Do you see your subconscious suddenly rise out of you?

Like a magic trick
Like a witch being summoned,
Accidentally
Because a naive ****** lit
The wrong candle

Sorry I’m off topic now, I can barely focus
But I love hocus pocus
The idea of three sisters being reunited
In the midst of a beautiful ,crisp, purple, nocturnal place
On Halloween....



Do you see your conscious slipping deeper into you though?
Do you?
So now your subconscious is your conscious
The thoughts we could control end up tying us up
Wrapping our mind around everything
A little too tight
Don’t you think?

And sometimes when your conscious is sleeping....
It’s the best feeling, yet at the same time so unnerving, just the worst.

Your sloppy, standing on a slippery *****
Sloppy *****
Lost in sudden, intoxicated hope
But your cheeks are burning
And your hearts on fire
Yearning
You have a sense of clarity
And freedom,
You think you do, at least.


Now I lose control, I knock over a shot glass
And it splashes on her lap
She licks her lips

I don’t like girls.


I start crying because I think of people and diseases.

I don’t like girls.

My eyes well up with tears and she says you look like a ******* baby.
You’re sad and your beautiful.
And your cheeks, so soft and full.

I don’t like girls.

Her lips lock mine
So lightly like a piece of pollen falling in your hair
I could barely feel it
Yet my body responded so swiftly

Gin and tonic
Gin and tonic
As she pours hypnotic

I don’t like girls

But what’s anyone going to do
Without the soft cradling touch of a lady
Who can hold you to her *****
Keep you close like Allie and Noah in the canoe
Let you rest like a cat cradled up unto a crescent moon

And give you the comfort and the freedom to feel peace
Like
A gin and tonic
Gin and tonic

Beautiful, strong women
So hypnotic.

Sindi Kafazi

Poem, poem I wish I had you in the palm of my hand,
Sometimes I read each word, with this hunger
Devouring it, quickly

Sometimes I gaze at each word intently, looking for eyes, windows,
Maybe to the soul of the one holding down the pen
Or beating the keys

But most importantly, I’m looking at the shape of the words, the font, the way the word looks happy or sad, the feelings the word describes. The soul of the word.

Some words are thrown into the notebook, computer screen, broken iPhone screen
Fortune cookie,
You name it...
Randomly like
when babies have babies

Some words are carefully thought of,
like settled down rich folks bound by their calendar, scheduling their love making to hopefully, fingers crossed* concieve the perfect child.

However, once they end up on that page, they become their own person.

They see themselves one way, they show themselves another, maybe a reflection of their creator

But the world is free to read between the lines
Judge them
Analyze them
Or fall in love with them....

I’ve done
Most
But really for the most part reading poems is like taking.a warm bath in a cozy home,
While the bitter winter lives on
Reading poems is to go for a long walk
Away
For some
Air.

Stop thinking you’re not enough.
There’s different ways to be funny, different ways to be beautiful
And different ways your talent is expressed from within you

Stop thinking your not enough
Everyone got it rough
One way or another
We all came from a mother
Caused great pain to a mother

Begged for a lover
Just to become
Someone’s mother
Or someone’s father
And someone’s none of the above
Or someone’s other

But more or less someone’s.

Stop thinking your not enough
We all struck by diseases
We all praise some version of Jesus
Even those godless
Get goosebumps
And butterflies in their stomach
And seek purpose and wonder

We are all human
And at some point we
All turn fragile

And at some point we can tell each other we are not made of porcelain
And to be strong

Life’s a journey
but it’s not that long

I tell myself this
When I want to stop thinking
I’m not enough...