I come into my room
to look for you again.

​I don't know how you could love me
​& I'm still afraid that you won't.

I'm lost again.
​(Please find me!)
​I want to cry again.
(Please love me!)
​
​Again.

I look for your face
& find you looking at me.

I'm thinking:  "What he must think of me..."
​& then you kiss me again.

I'm lost again.
​(& you sit with me)
I want to cry again.
(& you speak to me)

You hold me.
You love me.
​
​Again.

My mind is sinking down through my chest
​and adding it's weight to my heart.
Together, they're heavy
​and pull on the skin on my forehead
​and under my eyes.

Their gravity combines and pulls
​my hair in.
My head is smooth,
​I have no eyebrows and my nails
are withdrawing.

I grow inwards,
shrinking and getting heavier.

The weight of my heart joins, kneads
​my liver into my mind.
​"Too much salt is bad
for the heart," they say.

​My intestines lengthen
and then contract around it all.
My heart would be digested
if it could fit into them.

​My stomach sucks up,
​but weighs nothing
and adds only emptiness.

​I still have my appendix.
Is it safe to have so many poisons
so close to my heart?

My kidneys get separated
​in the mass and they're filtering
​Strangers Tears & Blood
instead of cleaning me.

The skeleton stays
hard and stretched out
​with my skin still stuck on it.
​To look at me, you wouldn't say
my vital organs had moved.

​From my eyes
you might be able to tell.
From their being dry and scratchy-looking
​and a little withdrawn.

-

​There are days when all I remember
is the feeling of your death -
Not You or you dying -
​just the feeling of me after you stopped.

I have wanted to be rid of the snakeskin
of your fingertips
from the inside of my
​doorknob ever since you left for Cape Town.

You interrupted me
with your sweaty poster-paint hands
​and pulled your sticky
skin over my head
​like a thief's stocking,
​blurring me.

I had no room to breath
the stale air
you left;
​hyperactive bacteria crawling
over my blue lips.  I was numb
​from being squeezed
between your bitten fingernails.

​Later, I wanted to inject you
into the skin you left me in
to ooze out of,
finding myself oily and shapeless:
A sewer puddle without surface tension:
​spreading everywhere.
​

1.
Voices sneak inside my chest,
talking.
​(that's the thing
​about other people's voices:
you can't make them...)

​They're talking too loudly,
too many opinions.
​(that's the thing
about other people's opinions:
you can't make...)

2.
(sometimes)
crazy,
rejoicing or mourning
or (suddenly) a

​brave and strong adventurer,
​           I LAUNCH out into thin air and
                     slowly start to hear my own voice echoing
                                 loudly
                                           in the silence
                                                      outside my chest.

3.
The day leaks from my eye-sockets.

All my soggy cornflake prep-
​talk dribbles away
​and leaves a hollow place
​for other (people's) voices
​to echo inside my chest.
​

When I grow up,
I want to be a pudding.
Maybe chocolate...
or ginger;
​still slightly warm and jiggly,
​syruping in the coffee shop vitrine.
​Or on my mother's
kitchen table.

Yes, I think a chocolate pudding...

​When I grow up,
I want to be a frog:
Bright green and yellow,
​with white spots in a line along
the sides of my glistening
white tummy, flying
spread-legged through
​the watery air and
​landing always ready
to jump!

Yes, I think a bright green frog...

​When I grow up,
I want to be a cat
​in my mother's house,
with my choice
of sunny warm spots
​to snooze in
in the morning,
​and tickly patches of garden
​after lunch and any cosy
corners of the bed
at night.

Yes, I think a cat in my mother's house...

-

My mother says I will be a pudding
(or a frog, or a cat, if I like, but)
a pudding suits me best,
​she says, 'cause I'm so sweet.

​Yes, I think a pudding.

I really loved him.
​I never found myself hating
the skin under his fingernails
​like I hated yours.

​I really loved him
​without judging right(ly) from his wrong,
without believing his worst, while knowing it
​(I never knew yours: you liar!)

​I  loved him:
being dumb, mute, sightless, faithless
​in love: being nothing,
​not like I was nothing to you.

​I loved him:
not missing what I gave,
​not hoping to learn anything,
not hating what was left.

​I really loved him
​a long time, trying not to find him,
​trying not to show myself
​exposed by you.

​I loved him
​secretly without seeking my reward
or taking my revenge
as you took yours.

​I loved him sadly,
wishing for his truth,
carrying my bloodied heart,
​believing in his goodness &
despairing of mine,
enduring my memory ...

​-

​Between you & me, I want less
​than the estranged tip of a lizard's tail,
​twitching with remembered life.
​

Morning.  Breathing
fresh(ish) city air
into which not too many cars
and bakkies
have yet exhaled;

warm white mini-clouds from my mouth
making reverse trails
for me to follow;
running forward
to meet them,

breathing them in
again and thinking
Hope!
Thin and hardly there,
like invisible​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ pollution:

hanging around as long
as there's no wind
and then coming back again soon
after
being blown away.

You can only see it
from a distance,
but, if you breathe really
deep and hard, like you must
when you're running,​​​​​​​​​

you feel that it must be
there 'cause it burns
in your throat as if you've been
screaming
and makes the air taste different:

Sweeter
than it should.  It's there in the air
and it's not getting blown away as completely
as I thought.  It's there and I'm
breathing it in every day.​​​​​
​​​​