Today I opened a book
And found a flower
That you’d pressed
It was red and small
And in all ways
It was our love gone now,
But beautiful still as the memories of something more.
You stole pieces of me,
In all the love I gave you
And never got back
Keep it now
It is my gift to you,
For you will not get more
And that,
My love is my gift to you.
The night is young
I remember you said
and what a beautiful thing to say.
I love you
I said
to the end of all things
And on.
And you smiled,
Soaking in the infiniteness of it all.
Do you remember,
When you stood there
Battling in the grand forest of my love
With only the quite rustle of the treetops against the sky of our love.
To remind us our love was real at all.
You came over me like a mad storm. I was helpless to the chemicals roaring in my brain.
You’d always made your way
to my side of the bed
bit by bit
until there was nowhere else
for me to go
and I swear
I could see you smiling
in your sleep
so proud
to have me safely trapped
between a rock
and a soft place.
Today feels like yesterday
But this are now dead dreams
Flowing down past streams
I don’t need reams,
For me to know now that;
More pain no gain
And more gain no pain.
I’m the drum that speaks for the African Heritage and the ant that leads the jungle of lions to heal through words.
Zumah the Poet © 2020
(The author is a student at the University for Development Studies (UDS), Royal Hall, Wa Campus.)