SONGS OF OURSELVES

❦ poetry

little lady of mine

all she wants is to see the sky

she doesn't know she's in love

with a cloud that's way too high

i'm coming home

home to her

she eludes like bluest birds

she's haunting me

mocking me

leading me nowhere at all

i'll follow her

and i'll die for her

when i am blue

she is too

it's the only shade we know

our hearts the same

so we share

everything from joy to pain

this summer day quickly changes

to autumn and i fall all over her

into her

i have no control at all

❧ raury, "her"

Well.

There it was.

Naked and ugly - a hairless mole rat too blind to see how wretched it really was.

The prudent thing for Xosa to do would be to explain himself.

You know, describe the lurid circumstances that led to him writing a literal bible dedicated to Sunkanmi's tragic past lives, the countless stories intertwined irrevocably with his own, and the devastating, enduring love they shared throughout the ages. How the flames of history licked Xosa's cheeks and how he staggered away burned each time, coughing up someone else's smoke.

'You see,' Xosa would've started, 'You and I are not actually strangers. And we've known each other in a spiritual sense long before the two of us actually met. So I-...'

And?

So what?

Xosa speaks truth to power and this all magically goes away? Their handcuffs mysteriously unlock and they go their separate ways and forget the past two months as if none of this mattered?

(but does it?)

(matter?)

Justifying his actions would tip them past the point of no return. Their interactions before this moment were mere pretense, a vision of civility and distance.