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Wondering what you feel like in the twilight
Is neither awake nor asleep
When the moon is full enough to briefly share its horizon with the Sun.
To know you are somewhere in this world
As aching dreams inside my longing for you
And within a multitude of made-up and edited memories of you.
There’s a weak and diluted shadow of you living
In almost every thought I’ve ever had since meeting you
Has spread like a stain into almost all of me
Replacing what I used to be
With something I no longer am –
Nor will I ever be.
Exasperated wishing that I’d never caught your gaze
Three years ago in September, at the corner of a busy street at midday.
When I had but you to fill
When I was one part shadow
A gecko on the walls of your heart
Through your halls I roamed
Of my own hapless hollowing
My life spent in following
I moved to your music
Unconsciously, deliciously, un-nutritiously, and viciously confined
I was happy to be
The impact of a heartbeat’s echo
It made me feel twice as alive
While your anger pulled me
You’d failed to consider
Sound is not swallowed
You had me so empty
That I almost drowned
In the glorious sound
Of a majestic echo
In the limitless possibilities of my own big bang
I rang and resounded
And I lost sight of your face
Within that sepulchral space
I ceased calling you friend
I stopped living for you
Because I never knew I didn’t end…
But now I do.
I wrote a poem for you
Published by Ilva Pieterse on 12 March, 2012
I wrote a poem for you
The day before I met you
When I didn’t yet know a soul can be shipwrecked
Or that the sun can have secrets
When I hadn’t yet learned to look for symptoms
Or dreamed you could become my weakness
You entered me like a sickness
From your first ‘hello’
You whispered my world red
And smiled it yellow
You came to me; a sonnet
Dressed in sentences and statements
With which to catch a schoolgirl
Your eyes kissed me
Long before your lips did
And under the spectrum of your splendor
My heart bloomed a blushing orchid
I was a slave to my sweet-tooth
You, a dulcit daydream
That knew just how to turn me
From still life into story
And in so doing, you cast me –
A shapeless statue –
Into your private purgatory
You created a planet
With just us living on it
And a snakepit, a sinkhole
With which to swallow me whole
I wrote this poem for you
The day after I met you
I thought it worth to mention
Why I started to regret you
So please pay close attention
(As I’m trying to forget you):
Though far from inner sense
Was no less common
Of your sugarcoated sin
Published by Ilva Pieterse on 5 July, 2011
Ek het ons storie geskryf
Met ‘n lem op my lyf
Die son was te helder daai dag
Vir my hartklop om langer vir joune te wag.
Ek het die mes soos ‘n kwas vas gehou
En diep snye geskilder – ‘n van Gogh vir jou.
Ons verhaal het verskyn
Op my vel – lyn by lyn
En dit was helder – so rooi, so vol lewe daai pyn
Ek was seker dat die seer in my siel sal verdwyn.
Die letters van jou naam
Het bebloede kuns geword
Op al my breekbare vlaktes.
Soos ‘n straatbrak het ek jou vertrou
Waar is jy nou?
Hoe waar is jy nou?
Daai dag het die son so helder geskyn
En daar was net te veel kleur in ons samesyn
Ek het jou les diep in my spiere gekerf
En my lyf met jou lou-warm liefde geverf.
Published by Ilva Pieterse on 1 June, 2011
Hold me like a promise;
Break me like a vow.
For today I am as fragile as the secrets of a child,
And as desperate as a dream dressed in dust.
Published by Ilva Pieterse on 15 March, 2011
There is another woman living
Between your hips and my thighs
Do you think I haven’t seen
The memory of her
Swimming in the moisture of your eyes?
Do you think I haven’t noticed
In the lines around your smile?
Do you think I haven’t realised
You’re somewhere else all the while?
Do you think I haven’t measured
What you say and what you mean?
You’re not the first to show up here
With a broken dream
Slung over your shoulder
Heavy with things you never told her
How you’re wishing you could hold her
As we’re lying on my bed
I can hear her broken promises
Resounding in your head
I’m tired of being a consolation prize
I’m tired of soothing away silent cries
I’m tired of picking up the pieces
And wasting all my kisses
Wondering why no one misses
Should I just accept the fact
That she’ll probably want you back
Once she remembers all the things
That are making me fall in love with you?
Published by Ilva Pieterse on 16 May, 2010
Ek dra jou soos ‘n sonsak om my skouers
Published by Ilva Pieterse on 25 February, 2010
Droog en skaamteloos soos ‘n woestyn
Het ek geraamteloos verdwyn
Agter jou albaster oë.
Waar die holte en die oorloop
Van ‘n leeftyd se hoop en verlang
En so raak ek toe verlore
Tussen die miriade woorde
Wat jy nie verby
Jou lippe kan kry.
Published by Ilva Pieterse on 23 December, 2009
I tried to recall the rhyme our bodies made
As we laid under the setting moon
And you hummed the tune
Of an old cartoon
Your whispers made me weak
Your words set me free
Under a star-filled canopy
Love appeared to me
In the shade of a tree
The poetry in our sighs
Could’ve won a Nobel prize
Your three fingers on my thigh
In the form a C chord –
Our friction wrote a dictionary
You made me feel less ordinary
You were my best
And I still believe your chest
Was made to fit my cheek
But now we don’t even speak
You left before the week
That I found in my hair
Never warned me it was to be a rebound affair
I was cheated out of luck
In the end it was just
To help you pretend
That the woman you went home to
Hadn’t forgotten how to love you
But in trying to erase
The pain you still had to face
You hurt me instead
Well, you’re still in my head
You’re on my lips, my tongue, my hips
I’ve washed, I’ve scrubbed, I’ve shaved
But I still crave your hands, your smile
You made my life worthwhile
The memory of your breath
Has made me blind
Now all I have is death on my mind
I stare at the cars below
I dare myself to swallow
I feel a sense of elation
As my feet leave the foundation
I lift my empty hands to the sky
I’m done asking why
I just wish I could’ve known
A little more about you
It might have helped me live
A life without you
Published by Ilva Pieterse on 21 October, 2009
Dat ek jou skielike skuld erkenning in asem
En agter my tande betrap
En tussen my wange vasvang
Ek het mos vroeg geleer
Om die tekens te ignoreer
En jou leuens te glo
Ek was vir te lank geneig
Om an jou valsheid soos ‘n stokkielekker te suig
Jou bloeiende, blootstellende geheim
Begin teen my tong en my tande vas te roes
So taai soos toffie, bitter soos moerkoffie
Bind dit my antwoord an my verhemelte vas
Die spoeg op my lippe
Is besmet met jou verraad
En jou patetiese verskonings
Van “so jammer” en “te min praat”
Terwyl jy ‘n tree terug trap
En voor jy my oë kan vergeet
Vat ek ‘n laaste hap
Ek sluk ons geskiedenis in
Met my kop tussen my knee
En die smaak van gal in my keel
Val die naarheid my oor
My braking onderbreek die stilte
En die teerpad word verkleur
Met ons verrotende liefde
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