Stella Sisanda Qishi

this heart churns love
this heart brews hatred
this heart houses my passions
my passions share a room with my disinterests
...

i have tried blocking my ears
while he called you things you were not,
but the epithets were heart-rending
i have tried looking away
...

where in your body is your heart located?
is it oval or block-shaped?
does it beat in regular intervals as you decide their fate?
how many will quench your persistant thirst?
...

It is hurled up to slate-coloured skies,
Twirled in buoyancies unreachable to man,
Passed on from droplet to droplet and back
Almost like a pendulum
...

the lament of heart-rending words
pregnant with hostility jetted off through
the airs, stuck in the crazy moment
of raging fury and inevitably
...

Every street is seething with impotent mobs
Scudding towards bushes and caves
Desperately searching for cover
As the angry barrels target each one of them,
...

I did not choose my presence
To be good enough today
And be thrown in the desolate tomorrow.
I did not choose this fragile structure
...

i will wear a solemn face, a half-broken smile
and cry tears borrowed from your unsuspecting victims
i will stand above you casket
and sing you eulogies roughly scripted
...

they say love is a fountain
flowing down like the Victoria Falls
magnificent. genuine, indescribable.
they say it's where waters of the same current confluence
...

behind that smile
there lies love,
unwavering, unswerving love.
there lies a melody
...

i wish i never came t know you,
to love you for the person you were,
the things you did and most importantly
how you made me feel
...

Listen…
There’s no sound of anger or of annoyance,
There’re neither cars racing on the highway
Nor that highway for them to race on,
...

She queues outside the community hall
With a two-month old hanging loosely on her back,
The worn out towel carelessly tied;
A three-year old on her left
...

Life's a play scripted before the creation
of you and I, penned down by Ambition,
Edited by Dogmatism and directed by Greed.
Our cues mystify both the cast and the crew-
...

of all the things that life had given me
still, i felt my heart brimming with discontent
there was a hole somewhere inside me
that no one could seem to fill
...

For Koketso Marishane

they knock my heart to numbness,
echoes so cold and so inevitably strong.
...

rapt, turning with every step
drooling, whistling, fraught with need,
pimped out rides hooting, faces
dangling from lowered electric windows
...

You pleaded me to punch you special phrases
each day and said you'd whisper in my ears in response.
these modern cords and keys curtail the miles
you trod and now little do i convey my undying love
...

Your fingers slipped through mine
my heart weeping for you
aching for you
you set off on a journey
...

a grudge haunts you,
it gnaws at you,
it redefines you.
a grudge keeps total bliss at bay,
...