Sola ellipsis

Depression latches on to every fibre of your being. It sips down to your bone marrow and it permeates through every skin pore. It has no rational thought, and does nothing but collapse into utter despair. Nothing said can even make a dent on the crushing weight of hopelessness. It is a powerful reminder of the truth behind loneliness. Why do I think this way? Why am I the only one feeling this way? Am I crazy? Why do I feel so much? Why aren't the things that make other people happy making me happy? You question your own sanity to the extent that you would much rather die than to continue to live in the dark abyss that exists inside your head. The irony being that the most humane way to get any semblance of relief/peace is by ridding yourself of the burden of life. And you always know and see the ripple effect of how your mind works/how you relate to the world, because you see the people around you slowly die inside everyday trying save you from yourself. Always feeling like a spe

The way he moves screams - Purpose The way he silently sheds his tears -Speaks of remembrance Intoxicated, when his eyes dance -Living in Limbo, caught in a trance Such is the duality of men -Silk and sand -Light and darkness -Both here and everywhere Both mine and yours -In every way Oh, and its in the things he won't say -Reading between the lines like a riddle Always black or white -Never indecisive, never in the middle It is all in the childlike maturity -Of soothing words spoken in vulgarity

To want to see the best in people, is why most of us keep trying. Sometimes those same efforts are also the reason we wear heartache like a Scarlet A- stained indefinitely by naively hopeful premises. I only hope that my girl children have an easier time discerning between the real and the fake. Always remembering that to care is never a mistake. Also keeping in mind that charisma and confidence have the potential to sell you any number of dreams for as long as you are in t he market. Anyway, good and honest people will always exist though, just last night he tells me, " Ahhh shit, I think you're going to make want to be your best friend"...That remains the sweetest thing a heterosexual male has said to me yet. Not, "You're beautiful..." No. A simple, "I like you as a person". And THOSE are the true gifts of having an open heart  💜

Sweet delicate premise When the glint of his laughter catches itself in the corners of his eyes His conviction sets him alight -borrowing from childlike innocence The fumes embrace my body like the scent of incense Hands wide he peels me apart -but never too gently And with the same ease his fingers gather me -holding me against his earthy strength The foliage of trees withstanding years past He is frenzied dazzle and fire -I am messy glitter and desire When he is circled by the primatively possessive  fragrance of my love - Just the thought of him enchants me They say we are slaves to the toxic dance of our own heartbeats - But I remain intoxicated by his clutch How do we rotate in each other's gravity while uncertain of so much? So I return home to the only place I feel like I belong - The spaces we can't help but exist in always seem so wrong Faces in the crowd: the sparks that ignite time and time again - But we are addicted to this most righteousne

The trauma of experiences that wound your spirit is the best inspiration  to write. When fuel and solace is found in suffering rather than pain, any inkling of being cured of the insistent aching  always seems like a dark abyss of giving way to healing or more hurt. Being open to either is the proverbial key to another sense of self outside of survival and leaves room for living. And THAT remains the loneliest reflection of self actualisation.

Sweet delicate premise Balled fists and closed eyed kisses Standing in your shadow is luminous Morphed adaptations subject to your touch Latching onto unstable footing Quivering under the weight of the bittersweet taste of your monastery You head the pulpit Where only ever your testamony must ring true So I bend and fold to fit biased accounts of realities I know too well Student and teacher Annointed caricatures of an Adonis complex You are the preacher Never choosing me as I choose you Bad romances A cult never devout of devotees So you give out a piece of us Played like a fiddle by your lust There you go dancing again to the sound of your own beat While I stand behind you watching my feet Masterful wielder of the mightiest sword Never sparring the rod Silently unseen lashes and cuts Failing and flailing Trying to latch you on to my bust The heady aroma of us It's the glint of captured starlight Both far away and so near So I keep reaching For th

Eyes shut I lay awake as my mind wanders Half asleep only my body slumbers I touch, see and feel Black-outs Never knowing what's real But the pills give me my favourite me Who cares about lapses in memory No more drumming along I sing, dance and remain free Free from insecurity Free from the doubt So if they can package happiness Who am I to live without? No anger No pain I don't shudder at the sound of my own name Oh so utterly devine For a mind perverse such as mine Candyfloss soft Chocolate and cake Merry little lamb Never dwelling on mistakes Re-acquinted with my poetry Writing again so organically It's part of me Joy in the bottom of a bottle Joy at the burning out of a bud Joy running through veins Setting my thoughts on fire But it is only the packaged happiness that gets me higher

Blood pulsates under every syllable The pulse lights flames in the veins of skin that bruises easily She is soft to the touch Tender with healing scars The heat of anger A familiar stench of scorched wood Breaking and brittle Ash and dust- remnants of realisation blow into the wind Well fanned rumours -Murmurs of the truth Set aflame Only she would die Because to see past the veil is merely a reminder Of lessons learnt and burned into memory In the wave of emotion How easily we forget Lies we tell in the night For a naive and hopeful tomorrow Still burning Always burning The fire Is still her religion Dancing with fireworks She craves the danger In the right light She beams But all running on empty fuel ever did was stall what was always written War-torn aftermath The damage is her salvation But She live

Pauses Nauseating anxiety... Before every time I write To trust the pen -the only true measure of my might Is a reconciling of what we've always known So I drown in blissful ignorance -nobody wants to be alone A reluctant fiend to your every whim It's all I could do to breathe -so you burnt me alive Smoke clouds and choked throats The nights have always been what I hate most Out of mind but never out of sight -the only way I know how to love you right

Outbreaks of ominous sirens  Concentrated in corrugated iron ridges  Erectly cradled in water rusted discoveries  Publicly seeded in the devastation of black soil  Spitting busted grapes  A tornado of the rotten blowing torrent winds at cotton fibres  There's fear amongst the stiffly practiced  There's fear in the corroded defence of fan folded ton gues of serpents freely looting streams of lost words adrift in a heaven devout of faith My afterbirth is lost in the placenta of thought These umbilical cords wrapped around my head Crowned my temple in life symbolic Fingering circles in amniotic fluid Painting reproductions courtesy of stark silences Strangers to closed stores Stock taking emotion but the inspiration is free And the failure?? Absolutely gorgeous Ridding lite flares They rival us to fireworks Mingled reassurances Bless them for being wise enough to look away Like down town streets flowering rooms with crack pipes Gasp at the audacity You're all so precious and

All I want is to fall asleep without bed bugs trying to crawl into my ass like a nigga who won't even consider getting finger fucked. All I want to do is to prepare one fucking meal without an audience of disrespectful cockroaches always loitering harder than city rats on street corners. All I want to do is to walk down an alley without a Zulu nigga dwindling my whole existence down to sex organs and tits. All I want is a man who understands the level of trust it takes to adm it that I'm scared, that I've never truly done this love before but I still want to try because his heart moves me in that way. All I want is a soundtrack to my life movie that doesn't involve gunshots and the intermediate screams of displaced souls consigned to oblivion. All I want is to breathe air that doesn't hold the fragrance of lost hope, shattered dreams and despondency. All I want is a home away from home. A lighter spirit, courage without spirits,a reason and some ga

Mantra for the ages I refused to write yet another poem about what was always bound to break. But when heartbreak anaesthesia clogs the liver and the bile scratches the throat at the mention of your name then like a cancer I had carve out the memory of us all the same. Cut from a different cloth but always with the same dusty fabric, when anger acclamates like an old friend it's harder to kick the habit. Sins of the father A heritage of second generation rejection I AM my mother A bitter taste like salt water You give life and take it away So here I am, willingly enslaved by how the tide may sway Trying to make sense if why he left me Why he left us I become a martyr of failed second chances Slow dancing with a lie A connoisseur  of fleeting romances I refused to write another poem about what was always bound to break But I had go purge you from my skin and into these pages Love and loss a mantra for the ages

Pretty Box Ribbon tied Approved and certified In the corner Beauty is the present  Untouched the anticipation is the elixir The thrill of the chase Unpackaged reality Falling victim to the burden of discovery In your hands The culmination of all it is and all that it will ever be The process meeting destination So sit quietly Pretty Box Poised and undefiled Feel admired as long as they notice Wrapped in your own mystery Hide your history You can't be too loud You can't be too quiet You can't stand too tall You can't let yourself fall short Embody the presumed perfection Pretty Boxes have no imperfections And if your humanity should ever catch them off guard and spill over When your insecurities offend and patience ends Remember this... To stay pretty is never to leave your box

Natural opiates, Agitated we tap nervously on the systematic flow of love and light Angry veins swell and we spill over Telltale signs Some things even the blind can see Straight to the brain Piercing Penetrating passions The rush unimaginable Crashing down equally as mysterious and equally as demanding These sad stories; the only moments we can believe in. To be sober, a fertile ground for suspicion and insecurity Is it only real because it hurts? Treading the needle Today we sparkle Tomorrow we burn Walking contradictions Beautiful beginnings Tragic ends? Blood ties Strength and weakness But you're the only one to make me try for you Fiends of all the small ways we die everyday I can't help it but with the mention of your name Your presence is implied Around my throat and by my side Overdosing Overwhelmed by feeling Like air we reach the ceiling Fading Sensory overload reuniting on the floor We are sinking.

My fears nestled against the affirmation of a broad chest and proud shoulders, I hang on his every word. He swings me around his neck and off his body like a winter scarf. Wearing me and taking me off as he pleases. I blossom and quake at the possibilities of being alluded to. Anticipating the thrill. Anticipating the disappointment as he inherits the sins of my father. - Z.M

“Often times I find my naked eye overly dressed…a retreat into thoughts that carry me into the arena of gladiators becomes a better option. Hereto lives the nuance of what makes me…me. I shudder to think of any day that I fit a mould, where the wonder of butterflies or strangers with stars in their eyes seizes to evoke in me the curiosity of a young child infinitely asking why or why not. I believe in continuously negotiating my own peace through ridding myself of my physically embodied state. As every day begins so too does my infatuation with daydreams”—                                                                                                                  Zethu Macatsha