Flashbacks

straightened hair,
pointed shoes
makeup 
made up
’respectable’.

deny self, don’t 
desire to be
original
for colour
is invisible

invisible,
I am good at that
no wait -
I was good at that.
but I am good at that?

time bends,
was I here?
or am I there?
in this swirl of
somatic memory 

I am losing me

admonishment of self
for experiencing such
simple delight,
time to put away
childish things

time to be serious,
responsibly dull,
conformity
is currency for
manipulating power

conformity eludes
my odd edges,
self-censure
sentences me
deep into hiding

silence

silence desire
and it cannot
scream,
cannot reveal
hidden depravity

silence creativity
do not let your voice
disturb the despot
nor ruin their
comfortable sleep

silence appetite
body fades away
I am no longer
taking up
precious space

silence the mind
do not usurp
their authority,
feign ignorance to
venerate stupidity

I am (nearly) lost

there was a before,
and now
an after
a hazy mirror
of the before

the echoes of
routines
awaken networks
of memory
of ways to be

I must disappear

I do not feel safe
to be, not yet.
And yet,
the danger is not
here, just there

I turned pages
of my calendar,
whole years passed,
and still,
my body remembered 

time has not healed

unapologetic
existence was unsafe
oppressive superstition
made others master
over my body and mind

Triggered,
I split into two,
a nonchalant drift
into entropy
contested
I grasp for solid ground

I will not lose myself again

Mother Tongue

Love is the universal 
mother tongue
a language we were 
born to speak

but some police with hatred, 
disguising fear,
believe that love is a scarce
commodity 

Fear peddles empty promises
loaning out power
while tying a millstone around
hapless borrowers

it tempts the ones with privilege,
who sacrificed belonging
on the altar of conformity;
the ubiquitous unseen

tho they hunger deeply
for love,
and to be known,
they remain starved by fear.

Fame is a smooth talker 
selling acrimonious infatuation
as a holy surrogate,
they buy into its cowardly sham

they seek to find the ‘other’,
strip them of humanity 
to wage their ‘holy war’
against the very name they claim.

Love never fails

Fear decimates it’s forces
undone by the cavernous divide 
of power, spewing sermons 
of hate, polarising the masses.

But Love,
the great equaliser,
unites
where fear seeks to divide

This tidal wave of love
swells, the fierce resistance rising up
engulfing apathy 
to leave healing justice in its wake

Love never fails