Lying in bed,
Crying, praying,
I turn to my right mind, body and soul,
Peeking through the dusty window
Of this borrowed home.

I feel like a fly,
Trapped in my own skin,
A mind unraveling
At the mere whisper
Of a past I thought I’d survived.

It speaks in impossible ways,
a voice that slips through the cracks,
like light through broken blinds.

And no matter how hard
the fly strikes the glass,
it never learns
That the eye deceives.

The past deceives, too—
It sleeps with one eye open,
Only to wake when I’m most vulnerable,
When I should be resting.

Slowly, I’ve grown used
To the darkness that swallows
The sun of my mornings.

Yet through this stained pane,
I still see a flicker of light—
reflected, refracted,
a beauty I can’t touch.

I don’t know the joy
That others seem to hold so dearly.

“Enjoy life,” they say.
But what is there to enjoy?
when joy itself feels borrowed?

If only you’d open the window,
just once—

maybe I’d see.
Maybe I’d believe,

Father.

But not through these mortal eyes,
clouded by grief,
blinking toward death.

I’m not asking for much—
just a hand,
to lift the latch,
to open what traps me

In this broken body,
This poisoned soul.

I want to feel the good in me,
To touch the love I once knew
with these short fingers—
fingers that remember

If I could breathe the air
beyond this room’s poison,
I’d remember the taste of life—

its sweetness,
its sting,
Its warmth.

I pray He hears me,
And grants me the strength
To break through,
Without breaking myself.

To open the window.
And finally stop
seeing life
Through the Window


s.Mhlebi