Author: poetryfest

Your latest reject letter only said:
“We reject works, not authors.” But it may
As well have tried convincing you that what
Is infinitely small is nonetheless
Still infinite. You wondered why your trip
To see your childhood home, unvisited
In sixty years, would terrify you more
Than did your gravesite, bought last week. You lay
For twenty minutes on the floor before
A pair of medics elbowed through the crowd
Too late. But if they could have saved your life,
What then would they have done? Resuscitate?
Defibrillate? Ensure the misery
Of all your future days by failing to
Prevent cerebral hypoxemia?

How difficult our verticality!
Your last wish was that Dorothy Parker could
Have written your obituary verse.
Yet hundreds at your funeral. I’ll bet
So many mourners would not come for me.
Some would say: “What a wondrous way to die!
Engaged in what you loved and sharing it
Like Leonard Warren on the opera stage.”

But no! It was a horrid way to die!
Cold obstacle to strangers pawing you,
Some meaning well, some not, all in the way,
Such impotent and ignorant voyeurs
Surrounded you to comfort or lend help
Or not. Some tried to get out of the way,
But all remained smack in the way, annoyed
Because your dying ass was in their way.

A truly wondrous way to die would be
A painless, quick, unconscious heart attack
Alone, asleep, at peace, at last. No one
Would find your corpse or even know you’re dead
Until your skeleton smiled up at them.

So let me drag my eyes across your beauty,
and willingly turn myself to stone.
To face divine punishment
just to gaze upon you.
If love is a curse,
then let it take me whole.
Let it make a monument of me,
still and silent,
with nothing left but your eternal love.
Etched into every part of me
don’t say you’re sorry,
Because it’s not any fault of yours.
I chose to be forever remembered,
As the one who was strong enough
to look upon his lover even if it meant death.
And i didn’t do it to escape you,
I’d never let you think you’re not good enough.
You’re beautiful and I know you’ll never know
how much I worry about our future.
I hope one day we can embrace under the starlit sky somewhere within the clouds.
As we have an oath to protect and love one another
or did you forget I meant to keep well on my promise?
As even in death my heart is yours.

you’re in the left lane on the highway going eighty-five when the road dissolves beneath you. you don’t slow down, barreling towards nothing. the sky unzips and the convertible top is down, rain and hail falling in sheets. you’re drowning. lightning cracks through your chest, and suddenly, you’re right back where you started.

my childhood bedroom is gray. the sky is gray. i think my hair is turning gray. i forgot to brush my teeth before bed last night, but i never fell asleep so i don’t think it counts against me. i get lost trying to find you in my daydreams and find myself pleading for a past life in a present body. i’m scared, dad. i call your number to remind myself this number is no longer in service. i’m so alone, but everyone i’ve ever known is on my facebook wall.

there’s so little of you left where there used to be too much: too many songs you wanted to show me, so many places you were going to go, so many lessons i had left to learn from you and not enough time.

-death approaches in white fleeting garment
-I reproach it absent lament
-it takes me on a journey of vanity
-I call it to a call of Clarity.

-death, come and take me!
-thou mortal that tends to take-
-the immortalised Me.
-death arise with a mortal
-but I asked for its pestle
-and he said…

-death runs at my sight
-it flees at my scent
-death I dare you to take me
-but I’m sure you can’t exist without a Me.

-you live because I live
-I am not threatened with your pestle-
-without a mortal
-because I am the immortal absent Nestle.

-you’ll kill Me?
-kill Me and My womb will put forth
-kill Me and My child will be fourth
-mortality is a war I’ve fought
-so I belong to the fort.

How you ended up here with black heels creating a heartbeat in your feet, matching the lines of makeup streaming down your face, you have no idea.
The person eulogizing your grandfather, was labeled as a “grandchild” of the deceased. The man is someone you’ve never met before.
In a beige room, you’re placed in the back row, looking at the heads of people you used to call family. Family died with him. Or maybe, even before that.
The man continues his eulogy, staring into your eyes, knowing damn well he’s standing in your place on the podium. He’s standing above a box holding the person you called Papa.
Of course, you begin to stare back blankly at the short-term boyfriend of a girl you once called cousin. Now you call her Nothing.
The voice of Nothing’s boyfriend becomes drowned out by the sight of something even more painful. Sitting next to Nothing, is the source of your rage. Her mother.
Nothing’s mother is the woman who rubs salt in your wounds and sometimes even inflicts them herself just because she’s bored.
For a woman usually quite vacuous she seems to have a separate brain for cultivating pain within the people she claims to care for.
You sit behind her back remembering the knife she left in yours. The one she twisted when choosing to purposefully leave you out of the obituary only 24 hours ago.
People keep telling you shouldn’t feel too bad about it because she left her brother, sister, and another niece out if it too. As if somehow, that’s supposed to make it better.
The metal of the folding chair in the back row digs into your thighs. You’ve dug your nails so hard into your palms that they begin to bleed.
You do this to keep yourself from slapping the makeup straight off the face of Nothing’s mother. Causing your own pain instead because after everything you still wouldn’t hurt her.
Fake grandchild keeps rambling in the background while you swallow how it feels to be fucking pissed, but care too much about attempting to placate the feelings of Nothing’s mother.
Blood boils in your veins, while Nothing’s mother holds the hand of the person you call brother. Because yes, she even manipulated your little brother.
When you look down your hands don’t look like yours anymore. Salt water sticks your hair to your cheeks and tastes like swallowing fire when you bite your lower lip.
Salt water, yes. Tears are too intimate for the numbness that clenches your jaw to the point your teeth feel as if they’re going to shatter.
As the flavor mixes with the tang of iron a thick concoction of anger lingers in the back of your throat clawing its way down your esophagus.
You’re realizing that Nothing’s mother took something else from you too. The room spins and you gasp for air, hyperventilating.
In a split second, your lungs begin to feel with the grief which had been drowned out by anger for Nothing’s mother.
All you’re wishing for is to crawl in that ugly box and be suffocated by the dirt being shoveled upon it. You sit broken, stripped of the opportunity to say goodbye, all because of Nothing’s mother.

The graveyard
Beside this graveyard, wailed my eyes out
Didn’t get to have a final word with you
Never got to meet you
The memories that were expected from us
Was never experienced
Had I known this would happen
I would have come earlier than you
Seen how you looked and how you played
Protected you and played with you
With no picture of you, I have forgotten how you look
I can’t say I miss, because I didn’t have enough moment with you
I will clearly say I miss what we would have had
A life full of your support and love
I would steal your clothes and you would mine
Make jokes for you, to see how wild your smile is
Tell you my ideas and we laugh at the mistakes we will make
Never afraid to breakdown and cry out loud to you
When it is tough and unyielding.
Still give me a deep hug after shouting down at you.
Having you close, would have been a pill enough to keep me going
Would have had a sister from the same mother not another
We would fight but an hour will not pass us ignoring each other
We will cry together and laugh together
Be the maid of honor on your wedding day
And you would be the first to see my ring.
I would love you fiercely and you will be the perfect big aunty for my kids.
A beautiful family we would have made
If only, if only
You are home with me not this graveyard.
Softness
Fragile deep inside her enclosed heart
Warmness erupted from her like volcano
She’s a delight to have and to cherish
In her lifetime she’s never seen hardship
Enwrapped in the sunshine from riches

It’s strange to write to you, the silent visitor, the uninvited guest, the shadow always loitering. But today, I must. Today, I met you—not as a concept, not as an abstraction, but as a presence, real and terrifying.

I was beneath the waves, surrounded by the waters of the sea, feeling the thrill of a newfound skill. For a brief moment, I believed I had conquered the water, transformed into one of those effortless swimmers who sail without fear. But then, something shifted. My right hand betrayed me, slipping out of its socket like a disloyal companion abandoning me at the worst possible moment.

The water became heavier, darker, and angrier. My legs kicked, my left hand flailed, but my body betrayed the calm rhythm I had learned. Panic took over. The world blurred, and in that suffocating silence beneath the waves, I saw you. You were patient, unhurried, as though waiting for me to surrender.

I won’t lie, Death—I felt your pull. For a moment, I thought I might. The pain in my arm, the water pressing against my lungs, the realization that no one above could hear me, that I might vanish without a word or a goodbye—it was all too much.

But then I thought of my pen. I thought of the words I have yet to write, the stories trapped inside me, clawing to be told. I thought of my passion for language, for turning fleeting moments into immortal lines. Could I let you take me now, while my heart still burns with so much to say? No. I am not ready, Death.

So I kicked. Not with the precision of a swimmer, but with the desperation of someone who refuses to go quietly. I clawed my way back to the surface, gasping for air, choking on salt, and clutching the life that was almost stolen.

What happened in the water? Perhaps it was your reminder that you are never far. Perhaps it was the sea’s way of humbling me, of showing me that mastery is fleeting, that pride comes with a price. Or maybe it was just a cruel coincidence, my arm choosing that moment to falter. Whatever it was, I am here, alive, and writing this letter. I have unfinished business with the world, with the people I love, and with the stories I’ve yet to tell. Death, you almost won today, but I am stubborn. I have words that need to be said, dreams that need to be pursued, and passions that need to be kindled.

When we meet again—and we will—it will not be like this. It will be on my terms, not yours. Until then, I will write.

Sincerely,
A Survivor Of Majini ya Nyali Beach

Written by an anonymous young person from Echo Glen Children’s Center,
11-13-2024

Two kids
who never got taught right from wrong,
One with a bright future
and the other who took the wrong path.

The other always encouraged to do right
but can never do right himself
Always teaching
always observing
to protect and to shield the younger one from danger

He never really knew
that everything he did
would fall back
on the one little kid
with a bright future

They were twins, damn near,
doing everything together
Always with one another
because they were all they had
Their father was never there
and their mother was always sick
but at least they had each other

Until one day, the path the older one chose to take
led him to death
His little brother reacted the worst way possible
Getting into gangs,
violence,
robbery,
and even murder.

Everybody else looked at him as a criminal.
As he wishes he could just go back
to that one little kid
with a bright future.

The bright future continued to dim,
just as the life from his older brother’s eyes did

He too, had to figure out why his older brother chose this path
The only way to do that,
was to walk the path his older brother once did.

Upon walking that path,
he had suffered hardships,
that he would not have known
if he didn’t choose this for himself,
At the end of the day,
he figured out why his older brother chose
to die,
to live,
and to teach.
The way he did

We’ll never know
how that one little kid with the bright future
will turn out
because he himself,
has not figured that out

If rain is a leaking prayer
that washes the questions of yesterday’s pain,
then what is fire?
Does it burn today’s scars inside out
so tomorrow wears a new skin?

Beyond the womb of soil
that cradles bodies before their time,
beyond the umbilical cord
of a mother’s last lullaby,
beyond the slaving trees
that bow to the master wind,
lies the tunnel of my throat,
leaking a boiling scream
for the father who never came home,
for the brother swallowed by fire,
for the hands I once held
now buried beneath a sky of silence.

Who watched the rivers choke
on the ashes of their own children,
who heard the streets wail
beneath the boots of war?

And unlike the breath of nations
who swallow their acrid grief
into the belly of silence,
this land finds relief—
purging its suffering
from the casket of its past
down to the curve of its broken smile.

Leaving me choking on the dust of war,
leaving me sinking into the hole of exile.
And what can be deeper than a hole
in the heart of a land
if not a grave cradling its people?

If trials are the gravity
that drowns a nation in despair,
then love is the buoyancy
that stops us from calling the ground home.

In twirling years to come,
when the ink of our destinies fades into dust,
will we be colours, remembered and cherished?
Or will we be smoke, whispered and forgotten?

First, introduction
New life, enter with a cry.
No world corruption.

Sleep well, my dear.

Not fearing to fall,
So many fun, new things to try,
Time to do it all.

Live loud, my dear.

Room light always on.
Parents shake their heads and sigh,
Where has the baby gone?

New fear, my dear.

Into growing pains
Spread broken wings, learn to fly,
Fight the parents’ reins.

I cry, my dear.

Med schedule to tend.
Never shall I fear to die,
Feel far from the—

Goodbye, my dear.