Strings of the Attached Heart

"I should have been more sympathetic to you. I should have stood by you. I have been by your side for a while now, I have learnt the history, seen the people and experienced the world through your eyes. It made me realise that, as a white person, I'm at home pretty much anywhere. While you have to justify your existence even in your own country. I will never know what it's like to walk in your shoes, but I promise, I will be more empathetic to you and every other black person. I will do my best to be there and to speak up. That's my biggest regret - that I was not empathetic to you at your most vulnerable. I'm sorry, Protus. "

"Thank you for this." I said, taking her hands into mine and squeezing them gently, "I know it was hard for you to come to terms with that failure, but we learn, and grow. And I am glad and proud to have watched you grow."

"Growing is the least I can do." She said with a nervous smile.

"It's the best part. Uncomfortable, but vital."

She nodded and gave my hand a squeeze.

We looked into each others eyes, and a spark shot from the gaze of her beautiful eyes and into my being, shaking me to my bones, emptying my head of reason and thought. I reached out and caressed her cheeks. Blood boiled in me and my stomach turned into knots. I was sweating and my body was trembling all over. She was magnificent. I wondered if she felt the same way about me. I could tell she loved looking into my eyes from her delicate, gentle gaze, from that shadow of a smile that creased, faintly, the side of her matte red lips. But I wasn't going to jump into conclusions. I had already been hurt a few times back for jumping. I couldn't risk it again. So I braced for impact.

"Can I tell you something?" I asked, rubbing the back of her hand with the thumb of my holding hand.

"Don't just tell me something, " she said with a coy smile, looking at me with such keenness that I felt she was extracting what I wanted to tell her through telepathy, " tell me all of the things, because I'm here for you...and I love you."

My Becoming

My Becoming

I sit in my silent muse
Wondering just what it would take
To let go of memories of me and you
Of what we were, and used to do
I torture through the redolence shelves
Like pushing against a firm mountain
Swimming in an ocean without a shore
Or getting caught in an unending storm
If roses grow from memories,
I have a vibrant orchid
Of white and red, a bed of you and me
The joy that you bring
The talk of youth and being
I then, pray, that time on my memory puts a blemish
As you have on the good I still cherish
That as I lay my head upon a battered pillow
Find myself lost in a new sun-bathed meadow
No more thoughts of you and me
Just me, myself and my being
My comings, my goings and my becoming .

Poetic muse

My continued occupance of this same spot for years is a damning inditement to my desires for a better life.

From a ferocious, violent want for a better life,  now I trundle along like a rudderless ship, my desire for more, now nothing but calm waters lapping gently on the shores.

If it indeed gets better, well and good, if it doesn't, how sweet is death?

I've seen them come and go, the good and bad times,  and the hopes and despair, and hope cloaked as despair, despair disguised as daunting deliriums

How I wish I could turn back the clock, go back to being naïve and full of blind hope, with a keen eye for reality,  but still a bit obtuse

But I guess I face reality, a reality too bleak to stare into, shining with rays of a thousand, five hundred suns, biting deeper than a burning pain from a knifing heartbreak, like the burning sensations from a broken bone...

Or should I take some time off, a short break from life, from obligations, from work, from hobbies, from dreaming, from loving and hating, from writing and editing, from doing and from just being?

Or should I take a longer, permanent break from just living?

True,things do get better, but how much worse before then? I wish to find out, I do not wish to keep waiting in line to find out...

And I can't cut ahead; one, because I can't see anyone I know to plug me in, but secondly, I have decorum and ethics,I think - haven't found anyone offering the right price for my values yet...

So in line, I wait...