everything dries up this time of year
driving into the wind I cried for four hours
but the desert air drank the water from my face, from my lips:
brittle sacks, experiments in evaporation

candy bar wrappers blow around the backseat
courtesy of these broken windows-- impractically high speeds
I don't know whose trash this is
I've been driving with a ghost

shouting at it, in the vacant passenger seat
all the things I'd never spoken
(for I swore you could read eyes)
but illiterate you saw only reflected stars

trying to find yourself in the Pleiades

all you knew of love was mythology
all I knew-- diesel gas, freon, points on maps
you read nothing in my vacant looks
I saw nothing in your ancient texts

a translation problem. little less.

In the August of 2013, my therapist taught me how to feel pain.

She sat me down on her couch, put her hands around her knees,
And said that I was ready to learn about the juxtaposition of love and self-degeneration.
She recited to me as I was perfectly amended, and wrote down a scripture on the walls
As I watched from her susceptible whole-draining couch.

I began to litter my mind with an effervescence as she talked,
I pleaded and broke my solar plexus to let it shine within me as she spoke fluently about where I will be in times of darker days.
I listened, and let cognizant dissonance transform into regular dissonance,
As we feuded over some emotions that she claimed to know better than I did.
When the dissension was destroyed with my evenly wild dismantled separation from depersonalization and reality,
She stopped scribbling in her book and looked me straight in the eye.

She asked me how I felt and I told her that I did not.
I told her that I am a vessel for the supremacy of a mind that looks at prominent self-worth
the same way it looks at the particles underneath a shoe or the water at the bottom of an under-gated puddle. I told her that I have never opened my eyes since my father figure transformed into the door I used to hide away the tears of the woman who raised me up. I told her that I am a conundrum with a voice that is shadowed by the memories I witness and replay over and over again but have never actually ...really...experienced.
She looked at me like she expected to hear every word that came out of my mouth.
She was more a carnivore in my eyes, and by the time I realized how much an allure surrounded my depositing of impressions into this woman's central nervous system,
I was already telling myself that I have never really needed sanity.

She professed that the boundaries of my life were created by an inner turmoil,
And I would notice its symptoms and prognosis if I would just open my eyes to its horrifying truth.
By the time the room was filled with lies, I had already told enough truths to let her believe that assistance and recovery were the things I came into the room for.
She told me that I was a functional disorder, and I told her that that was patronization.
At the end of the session, we both seemed to feel equal over the fate of a sequel to a previous encounter with our regular conversational dissonance...
She gave me a piece of paper.
And it became a burden.
With a despondency I created out of her bickering and my dejected submission,
She ended the session and let the emotion run free from the tone of voice she used to impractically aid me.
I picked up the paper and picked up my serenity and created more demons out of the gracefulness inside of me,
"Open your eyes, Mzwandile."
I casted hope upon my pocket, crumpled it up until it meant as much as it usually did,
and exited the room with a prescription for a new life.

There are too many people here.
Streets are crowded with vendors
and an indelible smell thickens.
Buildings are painted a faint blue, or pink;
they rise upwards, lofty and erratic.
On the balcony of my hotel their roofs are speckled;
one of every color.

Outlandish art fills sun-glazed shops.
Some are only twenty feet wide. Motorbikes
wiz down the cracked roads with intimidating speed.
I look up to the knotted powerlines strung above
cluttering the backdrop of twine green trees.

In the humidity, there is no fresh air.
I can scarcely breathe. Here is a city
impractically shaped, a different world,
but the tender is coming as I descend further.

In the interior is Birla Orphanage
where laughter spreads.
The children wade gigantic waves
on the shore of Do Son Beach.
Mucky water sticks to the sand on our skin.

A boy, three feet tall, beautiful bright brown eyes
peers into my life. I do not know his language,
the most we can do is share gaping smiles
as this city unfolds its secrets to me.

Some voices are silent
Because they have nothing
Meaningful to say

Some voices are silent
Because they know perfectly
Words have weight

Some of them walk away
Because they don’t understand you
And are too indifferent to try to
Anyway

But
Some of them won’t stay
Because they feel too much
To not be hurt by the smallest things
You may say

They both feel the same way
Silent, indifferent, hurtful and
Angry
So, you keep your hopes up
And pray
So, you never yield your love
And wait

But, don’t wait
A soul that will love you
Like you love them
Will also be the same

You are one that feels everything
And so every little thing hurts you
In every possible way
You are impossibly and impractically
Stubborn
You will believe something again and again
And you will love with all of you
No matter how many times you’ve been hurt

But you love in your own way
Unreserved, unyielding, loud
Yet sometimes completely
Silent

You are covered in calluses
And so are they
There are simple words
You struggle to say
And like you
They will take the littlest things
In the worse way

You are exactly the same
Yet, when you are together
You might seem universes away

If you wait
They will wait
A soul perfect for you
Might never come your way
Even if you’re right next to each other
At the same place

The mirror will only reflect what’s right in front of your face

That soul might love you for all of eternity
Till the end of time and space
But
If you wait
Their love might be words
You will never hear them say

Because, everyone wants to feel safe
And everyone wants to be loved
And not someone whose heart
Gets to be thrown away

They would rather keep quiet
Than to loudly love anyone
That they might love back
Bare and purely, with an open heart
So prone to be hurt

So, don’t wait
Love bravely with your already callous heart
Those that seem to back away
And don’t give up
The most beautiful souls will take eternity
To feel safe.

I used to believe I knew how to love.
I understood romance, and
the beauty and genuinity of affection.
I was wrong.

I was wrong;
wrong in my understanding of love.
Wrong for believing, impractically,
in the idealisation of a romantic love.

It has become apparent to me -
that love, in meaning,
and understanding,
is about what you can do for another.
It is not affection, affirmation;
support, acceptance, romance;
but, that love is conditional -
until your being can no longer do for someone.

For being so wrong,
wrong in my perception of love -
it has left a bitter-tasting question:
do I know love, and how to give a love,
that only has meaning - and value -
only when you have tangible gain?

What is left of our human emotion,
of the value of abstract feeling,
of a smile, of the journey of knowing,
learning, admiring; a person.
and being hopelessly overt in passion,
interest, intrigue and attraction;
the genuinity of being wholeheartedly,
fanatically, in love with a person.

If the meaning of love is only valued
by what a person can do for you;
do I really want to give a love of that
insignificance?

old friday nights
resurfacing
as i emerge out of the glass globe
of work.
old friday nights
coming back
to me
impractically
like i'm trying to
grab
a handful of velvet
from the dark sky
(and i remember
the
excitement
of those nights
drilling
outwards
from my heart to extremities,
the end of
my week shift
suspended
like a good cliff-hanger.)

my memories are mischievous
ghouls
throwing punches
at me
that never miss

no,
it is i who miss
those old friday nights.

What to do with this brain, opposable thumbs, and time.
It always comes down to time.

Part of me says I have acres. The other part says I have feet.

Maybe time tonight should be spent in - cozy, calm;
Tomorrow, the roar of time will be able to shake my body; rattle my brain.

It is 10.
I am tired.
But somewhat fearful I am not doing anything -
not living life to the fullest.

But then I ask, is what you plan for these next hours fulfilling?
Party, chat, toast,
brag, ****, boast.
A rip, a drag, a shot, at most.
And what is it to bring me?

A fire aflame, "I don't know your names.
Who are you? Why us?"

God, **** this game.

Will it be expected,
my time to be held in their hands?

Or can it be rejected with the hope that time expands?

What are more moments,
How should they be spent?

How and why when I close my eyes does life seem so bent:
Twisted, obscure, impractically hidden.

What truth is there when no words forbidden?

What time can be lost in this truth
What can be erased?

How can everything be proof
When all I do is escape?

And last of all the questions, the last to remain,
The impossible,
irresistible
refrain:
What point is there in questioning if all remains unchanged?

.                                                     I
                                                     at
                                                    The
                                                   sharpest
                                                  new
                                                     clean
                                                 blade
                                                of
                                                    dawn
                                               which performs
                                              the colour
                                             of life
                                                        in
                                           A curving sheet
                                          of condensed
                                         flowers
                                                      am lifted
                                        impractically
                                       petal
                                      upon petal
                                                to
                                    the breathless coronet
                                                     of
                                  unspeakable
                                 love

How do I write to you?
You're the fabric of life,
you've screamed it throughout all history
through every waking thing
through every collapse and creation,
you are there.

At times you are a ghost,
appearing but not being.
That longing feeling for you
everyone gains at least once in their lifetime.
I believe we as poets feel it the most,
the ones with too many words
the ones that ache the most.
For you are our muse
and often aren't even there.

I hear you in the music that plays against my ears,
the sweet strum of his voice, as he sings to me.
The longing I feel to have his hands on my hips,
as we sway across the kitchen
with Marvin Gaye in the background,
as he hums the tune against my scalp.

You're there in my sisters smile,
the glow in her cheeks that arose when he finally said,
"Will you be my girlfriend?"
and for almost three months, I have never seen my sister ever so beautiful as you have made her.

I feel you in the atmosphere of a Saturday morning
spent with groggy eyes,
but with full hearts,
as my sisters and I jump into our parents four poster bed
excitement in our eyes
and You in our hearts
as laughter erupts from all our throats.

I see you in the rage of couples,
as they disagree on the trivial things,
and don't just focus on what brought them together;
You.

Love you are impractically in everything.

I feel you in the tears I've cried,
when I remember my grandma and papa,
oh, how they used to be my everything.

I remember how empty you made me feel when I was a little eleven year old girl,
a whole new world set before me,
and it seems I took a wrong turn,
tumbling down a rabbit hole of depression.
I tried to claw my way out,
but I just couldn't
until you led me to the greatest love I'll ever know,
the only One who will never forsake me.

The frustration I felt when I first had my heart broken
how he had played my heart, twirled it across an empty universe,
before tossing me into that black abyss of loneliness,
forcing me into one the darkest of solitudes.
I'd given away too much of who I was
and that memory will forever leave me guarded.

You led me to one perfect boy,
one who soon became my world,
but you placed fear in my heart and whispered,
"Time says you're not yet ready, nor is he. Just wait a little longer for me.
Focus on me, but in different forms.
Focus on Him,
focus on your words,
I'll give them to you,
you need only ask."

And I have.
I still await the man you'll present to me,
the man I hope will be too engaged on Him
that He will have to whisper in his ear and say,
"That's her.
Get up, go my son."
He will be the one, who will break down the unbreakable walls around my heart,
because the only one I've let in through those walls it seems
is the He who created me.

And I'll be patient.
I will wait for him, because I know that whomever he is,
and wherever he may be,
he and I were predestined.
Two stars, destined to crash into each other,
creating such a Love that it is the brightest anyone had seen.

I feel you in the way I'll run
when we have waited long days
and wasted nights away from each other,
and he'll spin me and around for forever,
and then keep holding me close,
sighing as he breaths me in,
and I breathe in he,
his head atop my brown bush of curls,
a hand around my waist
another tied into my hair
while both my arms are clinging to him
as if he's a cliff,
and I'm going to slip and fall
and lose him.

I don't need to fawn over the young boys that pass me by,
barley giving me a second glance,
because one day he'll be there,
no longer a small boy,
but a man of God
and our Love story will be devotedly imperfect,
for if it were perfect,
our story would go nowhere,
for we would be stuck in Time,
just awaiting Death,
and not experiencing you,
Love,
which is in everything.

You are a collateral beauty, Love,
perfectly imperfect,
unchangeable,
just as you should be.

You were in my pain,
in my suffering,
but oh Love,
you pushed me the way I needed to go.
Onto your path of light,
towards the Kingdom,
through the people I've encountered,
through the words I've read,
through every feeling I've felt at once.
You are there.
You still are.

You always be.
And still you will be,
the only feeling we will need in our days on high,
upon the highest of clouds,
our fingers brushing the stars,
as we now can touch the cosmos
for you're all we need in Him.

I want to tattoo
"I'm allowed"
on my forehead
So people
Stop questioning
Me

I don't want to repeat
My excuses
For just living
Like
Me

I want
To inform
Everybody
That I
I am here
I am whole

I want you to know
That I
I am perfect.
Although,
I’m impractically
so