March’s edition of Poetry Korna, Moments When Curiosity Got The Best Of Us, as we take a step further into the year. In February we chose healing over dwelling in our battles, this month we’re asking the tough questions we have been avoiding. To step into the unfamiliar. To follow the quiet pull of wanting to know more.
1. Alone by Taurus
Living life now in fear
Without the fanfare of our relationship
I’ve accepted that being kind does not make others treat you fairly
My attachment to you became my muse
My detachment from you made me better
In truth, your love is fairly fair
My thoughts have become too loud
It drowns out the chatter of the crowd
Suffocating my voice, pulling my strings like a puppet
Controlling my mood swings
Keeping me silent and agitated around friends
Dragging me down into depression
With my anxiety ensuring I’m always the awkward one among
I am always eager to escape social settings into solitude
Technically labelling myself as an introvert
Too fragile to handle the excitement of friendly banter
Always in panic mode, fumbling with the simplest social etiquette
Always on edge, scared of human connections
My days are now spent scanning and profiling everyone I meet
I’m bruised and damaged to trust lovers
Because my main flaw is that I always fall hard when I’m in love
My scars are visible proof of how much I’ve lost
But the real damage is to my psyche
It is tiring and exhausting chasing what-ifs and daydreaming about a future that never arrived
I tread with caution, consuming life in smaller portions
Scared of being lonely so I learned to thrive alone
Yet I keep company with the memories
Replaying them in series, savoring the sweet scenes
Lamenting the chapters I’m not in
So now I show up without a mask
Try not to treat life as a task, play my part
Accept the fact that everything is temporary in this life
So I love more, well aware that we only stop acting when life ends.
2. THEY’RE JUST VULNERABLE! by Silver Secret
I ain’t a walking dead, neither a moaning freak,
But I feel their fuckin’ stress about the whole mess,
Tired of the saddles meant to trek,
I do bleed, and of course feel the guilt of their lonely mess,
But how can I help when my boot is a dreading scent?
I can’t just be a critic pretending saint,
Leaving God to do His mystery trends of whom He should swell!
I ain’t plea’in’ to any living self,
But at least the living dead should be catered for by the creeping stead,
No wonder there’s a missing trend of sparkling props,
That fuckin’ drug’s making them like insanely friends,
Of course no one can befriend a possible threat,
Society says it’s their fuckin minds, but atleast they were walking, living souls breathing like you!
I still cry, because they’re just vulnerable!
3. Lost by A-Akafo
I’ve learnt to cry in dark places,
to empty myself into a notepad
because the world feels too loud for my mouth.
I’ve learnt to be unfiltered with my words,yet filtered in my feelings
to wake up on some days feeling like “I’m not enough,”
and numb myself into someone I don’t even recognize.
I’ve learnt to mask the chaos with memes,
to hide my lost self behind sarcasm,
to quiet the whisper that says “end it all”
and listen instead to the girl in me
still trying to bloom.
I’m mending and breaking
and mending again,
learning how to breathe through the pieces.
I’m less of a crybaby now,
my tears visit like rare guests.
I swallow anger because when it rises
my heart aches like it wants to escape and burst through my chest.
So I gaslight myself, by saying,
“others have it worse,”
“someone is suffering more,”
yet my feelings return like thieves at midnight
unexpected, uninvited, unstoppable.
They say Jesus will come like a thief,
maybe that’s why my suicidal thoughts
arrive like revelation, maybe that’s Jesus trying to take me home, I might or might never know
Let’s see if I can carry this weight a little longer
I’ve learnt to be sharp with my words
when people cross lines,
learnt to use logic instead of empathy
because kindness has cost me too much.
So you may see me as emotionless, but there were days I clothed myself with the feelings of others.
I am lost, I am confused.
I carry a scar I pretend doesn’t exist
a mistake I once labeled a plot twist,
a wound I fear will never fully heal
Yet I live with it, I feel it close with the passcode on my phone, the pictures are still vivid , is it strange that I wish to travel back in time to feel the pain a little more?
I feel fulfilled but yet empty.
Telling myself it’s for the best , but seems like even better has deserted me
Faith pulls me one way,
my mind another.
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve questioned the big guy , and sometimes I think it’s better to be high when talking to the most high
He is my shepherd, I’m his sheep drenched in sin
Like the prodigal son, I know I’ll find my way back
But for now allow me to wander in the nothingness of my today
I am caught between belief and disbelief,
between broken and sad,
between who I am and who I’m scared to be.
And then there is family
they taught me to be fearless,
to tell my truth,
yet flinch when my truth comes too close.
When my tongue fires back like a stray dog.
On the outside, I may be many things,
but within, within
I am just a girl,lost, confused,
and trying,still trying,to understand the logic of life
to find myself in the dark.
4. The Unfiltered Broadcast By Zakie
The chains of the past have shifted their weight,
But liberation isn’t a choice it’s our fate.
The world spins in madness, fueled by the greed
Of those who take more than they’ll ever need.
They pose as the masters, the gods of the pond,
While breaking the earth and the sacred bond.
The era of silence and bowing is gone;
Turn the TV on, let’s broadcast what is going on.
The blueprints are drawn for the children to see,
To learn from the shadows and finally be free.
A world built on justice, where equals can stand,
Regardless of ocean, regardless of land.
We’re documenting the scars and the greed of the few,
To build up the many and start life anew.
The darkness is fading, we’re nearing the dawn;
Turn the TV on, let’s broadcast what is going on.
But look at the screen and the poison they sell,
A digital feast in a moral-less shell.
They’ve traded our virtues for lust and for gold,
While the souls of our children are bought and are sold.
Religious chaos and nations in flux,
While we’re caught in the gears and the vanity’s crux.
The mask of the media has finally been drawn;
Turn the TV on, let’s broadcast what is going on.
We see the dynamics, the shifts, and the lies,
But who will look upward with honest eyes?
The “catastrophe” dances in every home,
From the streets of the city to the height of the dome.
Is this the projection we choose to embrace?
A cycle of shame for the whole human race?
The warning is steady, the signal is strong;
Turn the TV on, let’s broadcast what is going on.
Is this the legacy we leave for the young?
Are these the final songs to be sung?
If the world is a stage and the truth is the play,
Why are we turning our faces away?
If we see the fire, will we let it burn?
5. The Sound Of Inner Silence by AJ the poet
I have searched for peace
not in silence
because even silence can be loud
when the mind refuses to sit still.
I have searched for it
in the early light of dawn,
when the world is still undecided,
and the sun has not yet chosen
who to be kind to.
They said peace is a place.
But I have walked roads that promised calm
and found only noise dressed in quiet clothes.
They said peace is people.
But I have sat among laughter
and still felt a distance
no hand could reach.
So I returned
not home,
but inward.
There, I met myself
without titles,
without expectations,
without the weight of becoming.
And for a moment
just a moment
I was enough.
Peace, I realized,
is not the absence of struggle,
nor the end of questions.
It is the gentle agreement
between your heart and your reality…
that even if the road is uncertain,
you will walk it
without war inside you.
Now I do not chase peace.
I carry it
fragile, quiet, unfinished
like a prayer
I am still learning
how to believe.
6. Where the Rhythm Went by Rosaline Iyabode Johnson
My mind is a wasteland of scattered dreams
You will find notes on tattered papers
Strewn about
Blowing in low winds
My mouth is like heavy metal
The jaws have a coil spring
They clamp shut when I open
To talk
I feel for a lock
For the lost rhythm
My fingers type faster than my machines
My mind seeking to self-delete
Wasn’t I supposed to be the
‘Believe-in-yourself’, positive larger-than-life ‘queen’, ‘number-one-god-knows-what?
Why am I stood fast on this ground ?
No worries, my next poem
Will praise my greatness.
Inkundla Spaces 