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The Scars Fade To White

Here is the start of the unpopular poem:

I don’t miss you anymore.

No one will get this tattooed on their arm.

No one will start crying when they read it. 

It doesn’t feel like it at the time, but time takes everything away eventually. Even us.

I hope you have a good life and I hope you fall in love with good people.

The Only Ending

Let me be the reason you tell yourself better stories.

The Map On My Skin

Those aren’t scars.

That’s where life life underlined the important parts of you.

The Love Of Last Meals

We're in your apartment and you're making dinner and we're laughing and I’m struggling not to tell you that this might be the best my life has ever been and somehow, I know if I tell you, you won’t believe me.

We're in your apartment and I want to tell you that even after everything that's happened to me, I can love you.

The Spinning Heart

Please take a moment to be still.

Even if it’s only as long as it takes to read this.

I know no one told you, but it’s your turn to hold the universe today.

It’s your turn to keep it safe. So don’t be angry at anyone, especially not yourself. And if you were thinking bad things about who you are, stop.

Remember that when you’re kind to your heart, you’re kind to all of us.

And please. Be careful with yourself and the universe. Because the feeling you have right now in your chest is what it feels like when it spins.

So hold still.

You are holding the universe, in your heart.

See you tomorrow, Johannesburg!

I'll be at The Kingsmead Book Fair tomorrow for two sessions, reading a bunch of poetry and signing books - I really hope I see you there! Click the image below for more info.

The Good Heart

You have a good heart.

Don’t let people be clever with it.

It is not a toy, or a novelty, or something that should only be loved briefly.

Only your heart is your heart.

Don’t let someone leave it behind, in the backseat of a car, in a time before now, or in someone else’s ribs.

Don’t let someone handle your heart with dirty hands and don’t let them use your heart to clean up after someone else’s heart. Your heart is not a rag, your heart, is your heart.

So offer your heart sparingly but bravely and if your offer is not accepted, do not accept a lower counteroffer. 

Because your heart is precious.

Keep it secretly, in a box made of self-love and kindness and the softest blankets and pillows. Wrap it in silk and keep it in your chest, even when it feels like it’s at the back of your throat.

Because only your heart cares enough about you, to beat for you.

So do not leave it outside, to be weathered in the rain and if you have, run, now and go and get it and hold it in your own hands and cry and whisper over and over and over again,

“I am sorry, I love you, and I will never let you go again.”

Love your own good heart.

Because a good heart will last a lifetime and if you can find another good heart, together they will last even longer than that. Let it beat for them every day, like a drum at the end of the universe, and say,

“If you knew everything my heart has been through, you would give it a medal and you would hear it clang every time it beat.”

And then let your good heart ring, like a bell.

The Place Fear Grows

I’m afraid of you.

I’m afraid that if I love you, you’ll become a memory.

I’m afraid that you’ll become something that haunts me, and that I’ll become something that haunts you.

I don’t want to be the one that digs into you late at night.

And I don’t think you want to be the one that holds my breath for me, when I least expect it.

The only thing I’m more afraid of, is not loving you when I have the chance to.

Of not finding you every morning. 

And what if all love is an act of bravery?

Could you look at me and say, “I’m am not afraid”?

The Good Poem For Burning

First, you let them tear you up, until they can’t read the words on what’s left of you.

Whatever you do, don’t let them cry, they’ll just make the ink run.

Then, crumple yourself up and light the match for them.

Then become smoke and ash, and fly far away from here.

The Questions That Make You Feel Weak

I want to know if you know who you are.

I want to know if you know you’re pretending to be who you are.

I want to know where you buried your heart and if it was easy.

But asking questions makes me feel weak, and the only way I get to be strong right now, is to not say anything at all.

I want you to give me a reason for all this that makes sense.