A six word story:
“Being nineteen and falling in love”
Play your guitar and do not stop!
For things that make me happy
Like guitar strings being strummed
Like music playing
Like my warm cosy bed
Like coffee
Like cake yum I love cake
Like a Johannesburg thunderstorm
Like watching movies on an airplane
Like every pay day, yay for pay days
Like swimming in the sea
Like massages
Like my hair being brushed
Like new clothes days
Like the quietness when I am still at night
And all I feel is peace and quiet
And I am safe and loved.
What happened to all that bravado:
“I play with you and I play with others
I show you the dark and I show you the light
To keep you from falling in love
Because I am not available
So no falling”
Blah blah blah blah blah
Same old same old
Okay
Whatever
Go and be ‘in love’, and I’m glad it’s not with me, yay.
Because actually.
I am not available.
I really need
My head read
For one day only
I will tell you my thoughts
I will write them down for you
Tomorrow they will be erased
What I have to say will all be gone
No trace of these words will ever remain
I would like you to know how much I love you
The pain in my chest when I think of you
The longing to be close to you
The desire of my heart
But it can never be
It will never be
All that will remain
Is a blank page
With no words typed
Or written
No trace of any words
At all
Faces and eyes and smiles
And voices and scents and kisses
Faded into a dark oblivion
And I hope it stays that way
I close my eyes and dream of you
I dream of all that we’ve been through
And I know I never will and never have
Loved anyone as much as my heart cries out
Every day every hour every minute
For you
When I was but a child
I would sit enraptured at the knee
Listening so very earnestly
To what my grandfather would say to me
So many stories he would share
Of life – how it was when he was young
I would hear tales about macaroni shells
And how they grow outside on trees
Stories about children growing up
Silly mistakes that they would make
And I knew to never take most things he said
Very seriously, because he might just be kidding me
For a sense of humour he did have
He could make me laugh when I was feeling sad
Lighten the air with only a smile or hug
And I do so miss him now very much
Not all his words were humorous jokes
For wise thoughts he would also share
Warning me that growing old
Is not for the faint-hearted, one must be strong
People fill our hearts with stories they tell
Infuse our vision with their lives and their love
And one day we find they have been taken from us
Leaving only memories as a faded note
That they lived and we loved them
For a short while they were alive as we are now –
Our own stories will touch younger hearts
As our hearts were touched when we were young
Day after day
And month after month
Year after year
Turning into decades
Passing my life away
Under trodden
Unempowered
Silenced
Invisible
And then it happened
We met
And straightaway
He believed in me
Poems and Petals 