The day you slept I cried
I wonder why

My heart sat in my throat trying to choke me so I could sleep along with you
And yet while you lived I would have kept my distance
Kept far from your disdaining reach
Now I would have given anything to wrap my arms around your warm waist
To touch your smooth camel skin, trace my fingers on your cinnamon freckles
Or just stare into your hot brown eyes
And yet while you lived I would have kept mine lowered
Kept my gaze averted from your frightening glare

While you existed I cried
I think I know why

My brains boggled in my head wildly so I could be unhinged like you
It seemed uncanny how the powerful, fierce woman I once feared
Had now become just a frail, helpless shadow of herself
Still spewing malignant insults at me from her chaffed mouth
Cursing fervently with force that would bend me again to her will
In your weakness your words still crushed me
Orders barked from your sick bed jolted me
As if the strength would return and position you to punish me if I didn’t obey

When you lived I cried
I know why

My body stayed in a constant state of swelling, bruising and wounding
So I could be scarred like you
It didn’t matter that I was innocent and needed your love
Only fist punches, metal rod lashes, finger nail pinches
Sometimes hair pulls, palm slaps, boot kicks and back hands
On better days the odd berating in public would do the trick
Yes, this was the only kind of love you had for me
The kind to pound me into the ground

Well now you’ve long been gone
All that you broke down in me, I’ve rebuilt
With tears and hunger and shrinking
The scars have healed and I’m whole
The love you withheld, I have found in myself












Nellie Nkosi

Jumping, bouncing and swinging from tree to tree
In a sparse forest just outside a village on the outskirts of Antananarivo
They adapt to the changes flung at them and strive to survive

On the ground a troop leaps sideways side by side in a straight line
What a comical spectacle
However solemn their purpose, they must find a home
The little one abaft of the line
Takes one last glimpse at the home he leaves behind
Oh it’s up in flames now and bulldozers knock down his trees
Beyond, just yonder
Over a hill further down south, the prospect is in sight
A new forest with new opportunities
It’s denser; it hasn't caught the eye of encroaching villagers
They forge on towards it in that spectacular procession

High up in the trees they mark their territory
Males call out to females and they howl in response
The young ones frolic in the underbrush
They mate, they eat, they thrive

Another forced migration
There they go again in that sideways march
More deforestation for infrastructure
There must be leeway for civilization one way or the other
One must wonder now
What future lies in store for these that have no place in government?
Their trails fade away from the Malagasy ecosystem
Their lives hang in a balance at the brink of extinction
Will our grandchildren ever get to appreciate
The extraordinary feats of agility they display
The gymnastics they perform from day to day
On the trees and on the ground in the jungle everyday
Ostentations of dramatic optical presentations
In their furry coats of monochromatic patterns
Perhaps they will disappear and my son’s sons may only get to
Read about them in the has been list of the annals of history
At this rate since erecting urban jungles
Of tar roads and skyscrapers is the order of the day
They might even be able to catch an obscure image of the lemur
In the form of a costumed trapezist mimicking one
Or a twisting contortionist in The Cirque Du Soleil









Nellie Nkosi

Above all logic are your ideals
Beyond reality are your philosophies
Your mind yearns for what is not
Only the surreal is what you see
When will you forsake this guilelessness?

The serpents bite you blatantly
As if the flocculence of the flowers
Did not contrast with their suspicious scales
How are you such a walking tragedy?

Blindside after blindside has been dealt you
And still impending affliction awaits you
Because your feet tread where angels would not dare
The light of wisdom points your way
But you falter sightless in the mystic darkness
That is the cloud of fog wherein your head is suspended

Day dreams of knights armored in shining amour
Riding in to save your battered bleeding heart
Might not unfold my dear
Remember that the knight may be another pillager
And his slick armor just another Trojan horse


Nellie Nkosi

If night falls while my eyes are still fixed on your back
And wanting to trace my fingers lightly against your broad shoulders
Is it wrong
When I swell between my thighs
At the mere sound of your voice calling my name
Am I hedonistic if I yearn for your chiseled cheek to rest on mine
Is this asking for much

How long should I wait for you to hear my keening songs
Of how I need you to need me in the tormenting way that I do
Just as the moon pines in daylight for the night to caress her glory
Do you know that I long for the night so you can ravage my decency
The way I would like to scream and squirm
Beneath your hard embrace
I want you to know what agony my body knows

Will you succumb to the pressures I apply
And unravel before me as you have unraveled me
Tell me if you will leave me wanting and grasping at nothing
Or will you hand yourself over and let me tear at you
While you intoxicate me with your venom

What will you do when I want you


Nellie Nkosi

Concealed and camouflaged in the long savannah grass
He waits downwind as still as a sleeping flamingo
Careful not to make the slightest sound
This valley is the richest in the land
Teeming with a mouthwatering selection of the most robust
Game under the African sky
He draws back his bow and sets his quiver aflight and with a powerful ******
It lands dead in the heart of the beast he has marked
The hunter collects his prize

Dinner was good tonight
The villagers dance around and adorn him with melodies of their praises
‘We swell with pride and plenty, we pride ourselves with plenty,
Plenty by the skilled hands of our most cunning hunter’
Only he is not at all present at this celebration for his honor
His heart and mind are fixated on a craving
That the liver of this buffalo did not satisfy
In fact it was as good as gall to him because the liver he longs for
The one which has him engulfed in a fog of insanity
Can only be likened to food that is fit for a god

Ah! He knows how the gods delight to dine
The terror of this revelation should be revolting enough to end this craving
But no
His eyes glisten wildly in the glare of the fire
Looking up they dart from person to person as he broods contemplatively
Over each one like a predator sizing up his prey for weaknesses
In their innocence the children rush to embrace him
Joyfully oblivious of his cruel intentions
And under the cover of darkness he slips away with a naïve child

The roasted liver melts in his mouth like fat in a hot cooking ***
He savors every morsel of it, indulging himself slowly
So that his immersion in this little paradise might last a little longer
No thought comes to mind of the little girls terrified whimpers
As he slit her throat and bled her before extracting her tasty liver
Only the splendid musky sweetness of it now has him in an indulgent daze

Now that he has found the desire of his flesh that eluded him for so long
Weeping and keening will echo through the village and those beyond
Women will wane and sing of loss and sorrow
Old men will dull with woe as the laughter of naïve children slowly ceases
Young men will search far & wide in futility for the monster amongst them
Yet they will not find it
And until his fall the land remains afflicted by the wake of his craving

the boy I am sitting cross-legged in front of
shares the same bruises as me
and we create new ones
on each other,
swelling like sweet gumdrops

or ripe fruit. his hands mold me
into a mulberry –
I bleed

sugar and water and sap. I close my eyes so that
it can be a surprise,
the stains I will wear for weeks.

we have loved so hard since we met,
we created puncture wounds
into each other
****** the salt out
then bandaged each other up and smiled at

the soreness.
the togetherness of it all,

opening ourselves up so that the other
can love our insides, too. his
is the burn of incense with the silk of warm
milk,

and I am laying down
in the happiest ache from him
knowing we wear our skin down until it is so
thin that
we can't help but feel all of one another.