Koupasetique

I fear I never loved you
The thought of those words are sticky in my mouth
Like the dryness of a Joburg autumn morning, dehydrated and mouldy at the back of my throat.
What is in my chest is the phlegm of the truth, not love.

I fear I never loved you
The motions were like that of a rollercoaster
Yet I was made only of bones that couldn’t sway with ups and downs, and I hit hard against the metal of you
The suns warmth ebbed and flowed, swung down the curve of my lower back, the hills of my hips and the valley in between, but that was not love

I fear I never loved you
You didn’t explode in my heart like that ravenous first bite into a over ripe mango
Skin ripped beneath the pressure of my teeth, the sun of the fruit explored every crevice of my mouth and searched for the fall.
Just as my being tore open and dislocated ribs to make space for the beaming of my heart that was sure to come,
searching for that very fall into a place where lust glided, it was not love

I fear it was all the fear of not having at all that I accepted little

I fear I never loved you
I fear I won’t ever love you

There’s a complicated story I want to tell.
But it has to be done face to face.
I can’t tell anyone else but you because they won’t process it, understand it, swirl it around in their mouth, interrogate the specific words I’ve chosen to use to paint it, listen to it, breathe it and take me in.

I wish you’d seen me enough to keep me.

Le Ex