Hi, Nations!
Here's some poetry I've written that's part of a collection I'm producing called At The End Of The Day. Hope you enjoy it! If you do, take a look at my Instagram @lulwaspoetry for more :)
Prisoner
The dark, empty room made it impossible to see.
It makes its prisoners forget how long they’ve been serving for.
All that they’re left with are the last four senses.
I wept and cried as the feeling of loneliness
Swirled in monochrome colours around my head.
My stomach churned at the thought of eating once more
Which paradoxes the years of restraint I had given myself.
I sat in the middle of the room, my freezing legs numbing more and more.
There is one sound standing out among the others
Of dripping water fading into a puddle.
Ploop… Ploop... Ploop…
I slouched to the bars again for the fifth time since I woke up.
My skin flinched as it clutched the cold, rusted-smelling metal.
I stuck my arm through the gap and moved it around,
Trying to find something there,
Something to explain where I was
And if I was in it alone.
The first day I went, I put handcuffs on my wrists
And pushed my own back towards the cell.
I took a key from my jumpsuit and locked myself
In a cage next to another empty one.
I turned out the lights.
Every day I have waited to see whether you would be
On the other side, limping to the bars.
Today, as I reached out helplessly once more,
I held your familiar hand in mine, and everything was okay again.
A Story
He asked me to tell him a story of mine
From a life I had thrown away
And locked in a safe with a forgotten passcode.
I am a renewed person with no words printed
In my book,
Only blank pages with no writing, no plot,
No hook.
The tales I lived through are not the ones
He desires to hear,
Only tales of hopelessness, heartbreaks,
Fear and tears.
Be careful what you ask for,
Because I could remember
All of the people
Who broke me last September.
Why summon a demon
You exorcised and defeated
When you’re free from all
Of the cold mistreatment.
I’m sorry.
A story of mine I can’t tell.
When the Jazz Plays
Let’s go somewhere far.
We can take a plane to the ocean
Where the waves have dazzling lights
Illuminating from the water.
We can hold each other’s hands
While smooth jazz plays
And the saxophones last notes are ringing.
We can swim until we can’t see the shore any longer
And everyone who’s been keeping us apart
Disappears in those moments.
Just me and my best friend
Who are done fighting now that we’ve reached the end
And all of our dreams becoming realities
Which were previously based on oblivion.
We can prove everybody wrong in an instant
Prove our hearts right because that’s what we owe them
For not completely shattering even in those moments when
Stones of cold were being thrown at them.
Take my hand
Take my heart
Take me away
Let’s go somewhere far.
--
Lulwa Naman
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