This is the price that often comes with true love. For the brave few who dare to love completely, it’s a risk we take…that our love might not be returned. And the pain that comes with that. That is the pain that no one can comfort us from. It is the pain that we must live through, and often we feel the only way to do that is through regret. Perhaps by turning the love into some bad memory we once had, we can change the past and make it easier to walk away…but in actual truth, we just ruin a perfectly pure and memorable life-long experience
Peasants Paint Scorched Vines
Peasants weep as jesters for the king
and artists must die to give their masterpieces life
In a world that should have
that could have
I learnt that even the gentle flame
can bring harm to the finest of vines
when we don’t
So
I love you in ways my sorrow
cannot forgive
from a deep pit within my chest
that distances itself from
my rational
I have carved you a throne
crowned you king and
fallen victim to the tyranny
of your absence.
You have made me that peasant
who pleads for mercy
at emerald phones
constantly rejected by servants
who bask in the poetry of your presence
and snicker at the girl
who has forgotten her place
I love you in ways my sleepless nights
cannot overlook
beyond those glistening eyelids
in imaginations that
spark hope
I have painted You, my portrait
framed You, my masterpiece
neglected in the basements
of your absence.
You have gathered dust awaiting my death
Your betrayal will emerge when I have passed
some random vagabond will remove my dust
and relish in the fortunes of your smile…
never knowing the artist
behind the frame that so selflessly
makes you worth that extra rand
And I realise now
I should have burnt you at the stake
before you said hello
thrown your charms into the furnace
before your heart kissed my skin
before your flames devoured my cave
I should never have let you
paint my breasts
with possibilities of red and orange
I should have forbidden you from filling my head
with thick grey lies
And
You could have been gentler with my vines
With some compassion
our harvests could have produced bottles
of TrueLove’s finest
With only the slightest commitment
you could have sipped
the richness of fermented affections and
if that was not your wish…
you could have simply left
Instead of watching me mature
into this sad bottle of nothingness.
Now I know that
Peasants do indeed weep
as jesters for the king
and artists must truly die
to give their masterpieces life
In a world that should have
that could have
I learnt that even the gentlest of flames
can bring ruin to the finest vines
when we don’t.
So we love without caution
And when that love is not
returned
we hurt without solace
