AS WE THINK OF WHAT TO SAY NEXT.
                
                                    
…


The quality of this silence
   is as grand
      is as wonderful
         is as eternal

                                           is as everything

as the sudden crescendo
of a piano on the moon.


…


For words are useless
when it comes to such things.

HIM, LOOKING AT HER.


She is subtle.
A face hidden behind an iPad;
Only silent eyes are left-

they speak:

-my world is here.
i choose here, i hide here,
i like here.
see it shines?

-my world is here.
pictures picture pictures
the river my news feed;
a status a raindrop;

-my world is here.
and we are the cloud:
condensing, condensing, collapsing
relaxing, relaxing, relapsing

-my world is here.
so send me a message  here
don’t look at me…they're watching
     send me a message

please.

-my world is here.
i choose here, i like here,
i hide here.
so why…
    
...why do i keep looking at you?

outside.

MY BED PAST MIDNIGHT;
YOU ARE ASLEEP.


The presence of you,
next to me on my bed,
is gentle and existing;
ethereal as you are.

And,
soft as you are,
it is nothing deep,
nothing carnal.

And,
cold as we are,
in needing warmth:
we cuddle,

with
hair quietly tangling
in the background
of our bodies;

with
blood warmly murmuring
in the background
of our hearts;

with
our tired eyes talking,
when we’re silent;
saying things
they weren't supposed to say.

I know
that we’re online
in the pixels, of my screen,
and type to tell you
that I wish you were here;

that my bed is empty, despite me,
as it always was;
that you'll only see this message
when you wake up…


But


The presence of you,
next to me on my bed,
is gentle and existing;
ethereal as it is.

Night Lights.


At midnight her heart, a vulnerable spark,
looks for some warmth for fire.

There is something warm, warmer than herself;
something to keep her alight.

She speaks in shortcuts; '***!'s and 'LOL!'s,
and in pictures; smileys and stickers...

Hoping he will  love her quicker;
Hoping he will love her at all.

But at midnight a heart, vulnerable spark,
is tired of looking for fires.

There is nothing warm, warmer than herself;
nothing can keep her alight.

She'll fizzle and freeze into cold blue hues
and shortcuts and pictures will fade...

But he had just loved her slowly;
In hoping she'd love him at all.

CLASSROOMS.


When eyes meet, lifetimes flicker
into brief birth, in seconds.
They then disappear, switched off
fading from glow as they look away.

And those small daydreams,
memories and ghosts;
diffuse off, dead.
Like momentary winds or clouds
shadowing the sunlight, sweetly.

...or the times I should have
talked to you but didn't.

Instead we had then looked away.

ONE WEEK AT SCHOOL.


Its a Monday morning when
I'm still trying to make out with you.
It's about half a year earlier,
and we're both late for class.
But nobody's looking; nobody cares.

It's a Tuesday afternoon when
we're walking with other people.
It's a few months later,
and of no consequence any longer:
I've written everything I've needed to.

On a Wednesday evening your sister is now
asking me online why you cry into your pillow:
what were my intentions, what did I want.
I'm trying my best not to tell her,
that I really wish I knew.

It's a Thursday morning again
when I still tried to make out with you.
I see you walk but we're both sure I can't.
Soon enough, no one would have ever noticed,
that in these spaces we occupied anything at all.

Then it is Friday, late afternoon when
I call you to tell you I love you.
You don't say why you won't say it back-
I am suddenly too scared to ask.

So now I am writing
everything I've needed to.

AN INBOX.


I watched our brief memories shatter before my face,
          and wondered

About our inherent chaos and implicit shapelessness;
         crying now

Before me. I meet grey scars in your heart-broken eyes,
         cataracts,

Singing a siren’s song that drags me to drown with you-
        I hate you

For bringing me back…my head had just broken through your waters…
       I miss breathing…

                                      ...so, so much.

WAKING FROM EVERYDAY.

The chords of your laughter, unexpected,
echo from the clouds above me
and scatter
like fragile light; dancing
across the green tips of grateful trees.

Briefly, I shuddered. Behind the bricked wall
of the cemented dreams I have of us-
I had head your little song of life.
But now I am smiling.
Your fragile light has made me grateful

to see the world in colour.

THE SCIENCE SECTION IN THE LIBRARY.




Why is it hard?

To suggest to me, you;
that I do not love you,
as Einstein and Newton
glare at us from their spines,
in truth and in shelves,
here?


Because when months pass you’ll be both here and not here
like a creeping silhouette: a black cat in shadow
-though within the boundaries of bookcases
instead of inside some sad quantum box.

Because when I am here, you will always let go
again of my hand or may not. Regardless,
I begin to notice- the bookcases expand…
…leaving space for more spines to glare at me.


Stupid, stupid questions;
curious, unanswerable.


Why is it that

I will then hear your name,
as rusting papyrus
is turned by young fingers
crossing yellowed ruins,
for truth in these shelves,
here?


Because today passes; you‘re both here and not here
like how light makes your tired iris amber-
by absorption of all visible rays but one,
which when reflected, leaves the rest forgotten.

Because when I am here, you will always let go
again of my hand or may not. Regardless,
memory is vacuum; you won’t hear me choking
in the Brownian motion of reality.


Thus the library is such
an awkward place to break up




*T.W.T Mulalu