Redemption
Ever since you left
I’ve been attending poetry shows.
Just so I can snap fingers at every love poet.
So I could ask myself how do they do it?
How do they manage to stay in love with all these rumours about them?
How do their lovers never feel insecure with all these rumours about them?
And finally, I got it!
Honesty!
So as I stand here today,
I repent,
I surrender myself,
So help me God.
I say I do to the truth
I’m ready to accept you as my lover again.
I’m ready to be an open cemetery for you,
I’m ready to show you all of my skeletons
To show you body frames
Maybe then you’ll begin to see that I’ve been framed.
I’m a haunted ocean
And these black bones want their land
But first, they’ll have to be Moses
Learn how to split seas for you
And that for you my love will be an aisle to walk down.
The alter will be by the coral reefs.
Reconciliation will be there too.
Noel Mbengeni Diketane is a poet who’s still learning how to speak.