Love, the disease that killed my mother…

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It was love
The disease that killed my mother
The one that bruised her face and crippled her
It was love that made her scream in silence
Her whimper barely audible
And her words…
Well her words were frozen between her throat and her toungue
Always wanting to escape but held hostage by a stronger force
Love…
The disease that killed my mother
Made her eyes as narrow as that open space she hid whenever he came home
Confined her to the bondage of “womanhood”
She had seen how it was
With her mother and her mother’s mother
A woman should love without question,they’d said
So every time Dad slapped her, or lashed her back
Or raped her
And I could hear her screaming
From under my bed
My “safe” space
Where she would later crawl,pull me close and say “it’s okay baby”
With tears streaming from her eyes and her lips quivering
And then she’d break down in big ugly sobs
Stroking my back and she’d say
“It’s love”
All the while dying a little more whenever she said that word
Love,
The disease that killed my mother.

The tip of my pen…

I have tried to say this words,But they are stuck in my throat, suffocating me
I can hear echoes of heartbeat in the hollow auditorium that is my chest,
I can hear your laughter as you meticulously imitated DJ Shitti
And it all comes back,
To the moments you tugged on my shirt as we watched the Transformers for the third time…
The way you’d sit at the edge of the sofa whenever that goal was about to hit the net
Your scent is still gracing my nostrils
And each time I hear echoes of your voice from the other room,calling for me,
A piece of me detaches from me
My head spins and it’s like I am sleepwalking through life
You know,I wish you’d told me
Told me that I imagined it all
Told me that you were never really a part of my life
That you were only stopping by for some gas and snacks
Told me that I was just another motel room in your long ride across hearts
See,I did not have a lot of self love,
Most days I looked at myself in the mirror and only saw the charred soul
But I chose to love
To give you all the love I could not give myself
And maybe you never understood,
That loving you was the only thing left for me,
It was the only thing that made me live
I wonder if you think about me
If you count me when you are counting your exes
Or if you just mention me as the girl you toyed with..

Or maybe you don’t mention me at all..
I mean you discolored me in the name of adding colour to my life
But ain’t it funny how when the story ends we begin to feel all of it…
©Wairimunjeri

Letters 1

I wanted to write you a poem,
Tell you of all things I wanted to say that morning
Tell you of of the myriad of emotions you evoked
Tell you of the feel of your lips against my skin
Of your hands running across my belly,
touching places that made me want to crumble beneath you
Tell you of how much I curse myself for holding back
For putting my walls so high that even your most intimate touch couldn’t break
Tell you that I did not push you away because I hated those feelings
Tell you that when I pushed your hand away,
I was silently hoping you’d persist
That you’d claim my lips again until I arch myself towards you
That you’d hold my arms in that same position above my head
Drink from me till you’ve had your fill
I wanted to write you a poem
Tell you am sorry for making you feel less of a man
Tell you that my skin still burns in all the places your touch lingered
Tell you that I replay that morning everyday in my head
The rains clapping against the roof
The mild mist standing aloof outside that window
The taste of you in my mouth and your breathe,
Your morning breathe that intoxicated me and made my insides sing
I wanted to write you a poem
Tell you that it’ll be different the next time
But,my sight now disgusts you
My voice puts you to an edge of anger
The memory of me gives you a miasma of something rotten
I know I have ceased to exist in your world
I know ,I know, I know
So I wanted to write you a poem
But your hatred makes my words bloom a corsage in my chest
Your hate kills me with impunity,
Sticks straws inside my heart and draws
Slowly by slowly the blood from me
Your hate makes me wish you’d killed me the moment you so jokingly said you would.

In words of remorse

I said I had something to tell you and you hang up

The riotous sound of that beep still haunts me you know

I stared at the caller ID till my eyes blinked,

Only this time they blinked the tears I have been holding

I hadn’t seen this coming

A surreal surprise

 

I know I had put you on hold so many times

So perhaps I should understand that you ran out of patience

Give you another chance even

But you had taken one so many

So before I go on

I hope you now understand my predicament

 

This poem is not for apology

And no, you haven’t broken my heart

I mean you cannot break what was never your s, can you?

I also know that you are thinking that this is just another of my tantrums

That tomorrow I will call you and still end the sentence with I love you

Well sorry; the six year old that throws tantrums in the mall grows up later

 

I just thought you should know that my ‘someday’ is today

You remember all those times I told you I had something to say?

First, I wanted you to know that you breathed into my life a will to live, to survive

You explained to me everything in so many words but as I always told you,

I understood you even in silence

 

Second, whenever I looked into your eyes,

I did not see love,

I saw the rest of my life laid neatly in rows and columns

You were at the center of it all

I saw us wishing for each other upon the same star

What I am saying is that I saw our future in your eyes

And maybe we were meant to be, we just did it wrong

 

Third is that those dreams you had of me and were afraid to tell me,

I had them too

You were not insane when you said something I had not told you in our walks

I remember now that it is in the dreams that we talked the most

Maybe that’s why I ran short for words whenever I was about to say something

That’s how we came to this end, I never said anything

Isn’t it weird how when the story ends we begin to feel all of it?

 

Fourth is to let you know that when I said I loved you,

I lied

I do not know what love should feel like

I don’t know what it should look like either

I guess I bottled up all those emotions I had for you and called it love

Maybe I just realized

That my eyes were not bright enough to chase the demons in you

And that I wasn’t sure if loving you stained me or brought color into my life

 

Fifth is to explain why this feels like farewell

 

Sixth is that this is not farewell

It is just another way of me saying that I still love you

Even if I have no idea what that is

This is me saying that you are in my dreams even when I am awake

I still see our future in your eyes

This is me saying that of course you broke my heart,

Only that you broke it in all the right places.

 

Seven, well seven is just for you to know that

The love I have for you broke me

And now I have to let that love heal me.