i go to the store for essentails,
.
eggs,
bread,
and bags
to line the kitcen bin with.
.
but in the fruit aisle i am seduced by mangoes from a hot country,
and i fall in love
right there.
.
i touch,
i pick up,
and i smell
the ripeness of the red skin
and
everything that lies beneath.
.
i have never liked mangoes,
a woman says to me.
they are too messy,
and the juice
stains.
.
i nod quietly at her truth, but
.
i also go home to my kitchen where nothing makes sense anymore
since a lifetime ago.
.
and here, in the afternoon light,
i peel and i slice,
and i cut away,
until
.
the flesh blooms ripe orange
in my hungry hands,
like the sun,
or truth.
.
and i eat the fragrant offering,
the juice running down my chin and onto my shirt.
.
and i think to myself,
.
this will leave a mark that cannot ever be removed.
.
and it tastes like freedom,
and like all the more
that i have been
searching for,
for so long
now.
.
— do you know what my freedom tastes like?
.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
.
Photograph by Ruth Currie.
.
.
.
.
#relationships #poetry #poetryporn #poetrycommunity #poetryofinstagram #poetrylover #woman #words #wordsmith #iweepinink #spilledink #spilledthoughts #indiepoet #indiepoetry #freedom #findyourfreedom #amwriting #liezelgraham #liezelgrahampoetry #wotd #wordporn #livemoremagic #livefree #healing
a few nights ago, whilst paging through a magazine, i read a letter by ‘struggling to trust’, penned in desperation to an agony aunt column, and
.
she writes—this woman with an ancient question burning in her bones—that she had known a man for a long time, since they were not much more than children, and how she had planted love at his feet, in wild faith, as we women sometimes do, but
.
how he did not notice the fragrance of the flowers that bloomed around her when he was near, but still
.
she hoped.
.
for more. for him. for love.
.
and how they had lost sight of each other over the years, but love is a thing that does not easily die, even if it is only watered by one pair of hands,
.
and how there came a night where they were in the same place, geographically at least, and how he poured hot words all over her naked skin, and how she gave him her heart in her hands, and
.
she tells of his kiss, and his mouth and how it lingered on her limbs, and over the softest parts of her, and how he found the secret scar that runs across the half-moon of her right breast,
.
and she had once fought the darkness, and won, but
.
he did not know this, and
.
how his fingers had traced the full length of it, and how his mouth had moved over its landscape, on his conquering path, and how he did not stop to look into her eyes with ‘when’ and ‘how’ and ‘why’ on his lips, and
.
don’t scars in secret places whisper, there is more here and i am showing you everything that i have hidden from the world, and please look into my eyes and see what i am giving you, and
.
how the next morning he took all his words with him, and how they didn’t seem to shine as much in the light.
.
and what she really needed to know was how could she change so that she could be enough for him, and did this mean that he never really loved her?
.
and the reply came:
.
tell me...what do you think?
.
— the lies we tell ourselves.
.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
.
Photograph by Jaymantri.
.
.
.
#poetry #woman #lovepoetry #love #relationships #wasitlove #poetryporn #spilledthoughts #spilledink #iweepinink #liezelgraham #liezelgrahampoetry #wotd #potd #fortheloveofwords #poetrycommunity #indiepoet #indiepoetry
at least now
i can give you this.
.
that you are not responsible
for the landscape
of us.
.
i planted.
you ripped it all out.
without knowing,
i suppose.
.
you watered.
i let the hot sun fall.
on purpose,
i suppose.
.
at least now,
i can give you this.
.
— absolution.
.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
.
a reflection on how sometimes, we apportion blame unfairly onto the shoulders of another,
.
when relationships are planted and watered by two pairs of hands.
.
Photograph by Zachary de Bottis.
.
.
.
.
#poetry #poetryporn #poetrycommunity #words #wordsmith #relationships #relationshipquotes #marriage #friendship #spilledink #spilledthoughts #iweepinink #liezelgraham #liezelgrahampoetry #indiepoet #indiepoetry #potd #wordporn #learningtoletgo #absolution
the postman with his monday smile, brings me a crisp
.
‘to the parents of’
letter,
.
filled to all four corners with heavy words
.
alleles,
genetics,
and chromosomes,
.
and after the words have read me,
.
from top to bottom,
and inside out,
.
i leave it lying face down on the kitchen table.
.
my son is in the other room,
chocolate smears around his mouth, all the way down to where my father’s dimple cleaves his boy-chin.
.
he laughs from deep within his soft belly, dancing to a song that only he can hear inside his head.
his smile can set paper on fire.
.
he holds both his hands out to me,
.
‘dance with me mom, dance with me!’
.
and i do.
.
— what to do with words from a geneticist.
.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
.
Photograph by Porapak Apichodilok.
.
.
.
#poetry #motherhood #boymom #autism #chromosomes #genetics #words #wordsmith #poetryporn #spilledink #spilledthoughts #iweepinink #indiepoet #indiepoetry #liezelgraham #liezelgrahampoetry #livelifehappy #amwriting #life #poetrycommunity #shewrites
