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Tawanda Mulalu Aug 2014
A GOODBYE MESSAGE.


When the last girl broke my heart, I had died a romantic
-Shakespeare was getting old anyway.
Sleepless and young, I withered a while
And tireless sweat formed dewdrops on my skin
-I see you.

Wait,
what I meant to say was...
I died for nobody's sins
and came back for nobody's hopes...
nobody's hopes but mine.
Hoping
that I could and can still see you.

No.

I don't agree with the opening line
-it really has nothing to do with her.
What I'm trying to say,
What I'm trying to say...

Is that it's better we talk over the phone.

See the last time I broke my  heart, I had died a romantic
-I thought Shakespeare was getting old;
But it was really me of course.
But God you look so timeless right now
-I can still see you dancing in that dress (right now).

And the turns of your heels are kaleidoscope
-You shift from one dress to the next.
Or is that just a way of saying
That my inner clock is a slideshow of you?

I had died a romantic
and was reborn a realist,
and I'm very, very lucky
Because there's nothing...
nothing that's realer than you.

Though

what I' mean and I'm trying to say...
what I mean and I'm trying to say...
is that it's better we talk over the phone...
that I like it when we're on our own.

Goodnight Darjeeling.
It's still just a draft though.
Tawanda Mulalu Aug 2014
AS WE THINK OF WHAT TO SAY NEXT.
                
                                    



The quality of this silence
   is as grand
      is as wonderful
         is as eternal

                                           is as everything

as the sudden crescendo
of a piano on the moon.





For words are useless
when it comes to such things.
I talk a lot, but recently I've been taught how sometimes words aren't needed to be said...only thought.
Tawanda Mulalu Aug 2014
HIM, LOOKING AT HER.


She is subtle.
A face hidden behind an iPad;
Only silent eyes are left-

they speak:

-my world is here.
i choose here, i hide here,
i like here.
see it shines?

-my world is here.
pictures picture pictures
the river my news feed;
a status a raindrop;

-my world is here.
and we are the cloud:
condensing, condensing, collapsing
relaxing, relaxing, relapsing

-my world is here.
so send me a message  here
don’t look at me…they're watching
     send me a message

please.

-my world is here.
i choose here, i like here,
i hide here.
so why…
    
...why do i keep looking at you?

outside.
We exist in reality and not in computer screens.
Tawanda Mulalu Aug 2014
MY BED PAST MIDNIGHT;
YOU ARE ASLEEP.


The presence of you,
next to me on my bed,
is gentle and existing;
ethereal as you are.

And,
soft as you are,
it is nothing deep,
nothing carnal.

And,
cold as we are,
in needing warmth:
we cuddle,

with
hair quietly tangling
in the background
of our bodies;

with
blood warmly murmuring
in the background
of our hearts;

with
our tired eyes talking,
when we’re silent;
saying things
they weren't supposed to say.

I know
that we’re online
in the pixels, of my screen,
and type to tell you
that I wish you were here;

that my bed is empty, despite me,
as it always was;
that you'll only see this message
when you wake up…


But


The presence of you,
next to me on my bed,
is gentle and existing;
ethereal as it is.
Sigh.
Tawanda Mulalu Aug 2014
Night Lights.


At midnight her heart, a vulnerable spark,
looks for some warmth for fire.

There is something warm, warmer than herself;
something to keep her alight.

She speaks in shortcuts; '***!'s and 'LOL!'s,
and in pictures; smileys and stickers...

Hoping he will  love her quicker;
Hoping he will love her at all.

But at midnight a heart, vulnerable spark,
is tired of looking for fires.

There is nothing warm, warmer than herself;
nothing can keep her alight.

She'll fizzle and freeze into cold blue hues
and shortcuts and pictures will fade...

But he had just loved her slowly;
In hoping she'd love him at all.
Again, Facebook *****.
Tawanda Mulalu Aug 2014
CLASSROOMS.


When eyes meet, lifetimes flicker
into brief birth, in seconds.
They then disappear, switched off
fading from glow as they look away.

And those small daydreams,
memories and ghosts;
diffuse off, dead.
Like momentary winds or clouds
shadowing the sunlight, sweetly.

...or the times I should have
talked to you but didn't.

Instead we had then looked away.
I don't concentrate at school. I instead construct 'what if' scenarios about girls who barely notice I'm alive.
Tawanda Mulalu Aug 2014
ONE WEEK AT SCHOOL.


Its a Monday morning when
I'm still trying to make out with you.
It's about half a year earlier,
and we're both late for class.
But nobody's looking; nobody cares.

It's a Tuesday afternoon when
we're walking with other people.
It's a few months later,
and of no consequence any longer:
I've written everything I've needed to.

On a Wednesday evening your sister is now
asking me online why you cry into your pillow:
what were my intentions, what did I want.
I'm trying my best not to tell her,
that I really wish I knew.

It's a Thursday morning again
when I still tried to make out with you.
I see you walk but we're both sure I can't.
Soon enough, no one would have ever noticed,
that in these spaces we occupied anything at all.

Then it is Friday, late afternoon when
I call you to tell you I love you.
You don't say why you won't say it back-
I am suddenly too scared to ask.

So now I am writing
everything I've needed to.
Time plays tricks on us. All day, everyday.
Tawanda Mulalu Aug 2014
AN INBOX.


I watched our brief memories shatter before my face,
          and wondered

About our inherent chaos and implicit shapelessness;
         crying now

Before me. I meet grey scars in your heart-broken eyes,
         cataracts,

Singing a siren’s song that drags me to drown with you-
        I hate you

For bringing me back…my head had just broken through your waters…
       I miss breathing…

                                      ...so, so much.
Facebook *****.
Tawanda Mulalu Aug 2014
WAKING FROM EVERYDAY.

The chords of your laughter, unexpected,
echo from the clouds above me
and scatter
like fragile light; dancing
across the green tips of grateful trees.

Briefly, I shuddered. Behind the bricked wall
of the cemented dreams I have of us-
I had head your little song of life.
But now I am smiling.
Your fragile light has made me grateful

to see the world in colour.
Old love, new love.
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