I’m a simpleton
Easily excitable
It is the very passion of Christ I have that thrills me
But I am human
And as a human being, I find that love
Is never without consequence
Maybe it’s because of the lack of understanding
Or maybe our ability to Godly love in human form is disabled
I struggle
To love without finding myself exposed
Vulnerable
Picking at scabs until they bleed infinitely
It is hard
To understand love
It is even harder
To transfer that love without taking from ourselves something so whole
That if it leaves us
We feel empty
So then…
How do we love the way God wants
Without feeling empty?
Love
Is pressing past issues
Of oneself and the other half
It is measuring spiritually how much we should pour for an edible recipe
It is hard
Not impossible
But hard I say
I am yet to grasp how to love without punishing myself when it fails
I am yet to learn romance
The consumption that starts as a flicker
I am patient
I don’t write like an educated man
I write like a Feeling man
You can’t organize feelings
You can’t organize God
Ntaoleng Patience Noxolo Labane is a hearty poet from Bloemfontein. She’s a podcast founder of Her Thoughts on Spotify. She’s worked with numerous artists like Dera Melani from Nigeria, The Siknatcha art movement in Qwaqwa, Hope Netshivhambe, Oratile Molale, Thuthukani Ndlovu, Emma Mabye, Siphokazi Jonas, Tshiamo Malatji, Hape Mokhele, JahRose Jafta and many more. She’s been part of Word and Sound episodes, Hear my Voice, Vryfees, Poetic Blues, Soul Infusion, Lesedi Fm PENM, and so forth. She is also a visual artist, she’s been part of INFINI3, DCMA. She’s also a vocalist, author, essayist, activist of Human rights. She’s a UFS graduate with a BSc degree. She’s currently working on 3 projects, a poetry documentary, a music series, and a theater production addressing something exciting. Patience is a Christian above all else, Queer and proud, a poet more than anything.