"ROUGH"

I'm trying to swim away from the whirl in your coffee, 
but, every time you stir it up, I get back to the middle,
Go on, drown me deep and make it work for yourself,
Need more sweetness? Yeap! Reach for the top shelf,
My melting skin isn't good scent, drop in some toffee,
Once I had a heart like yours. Hard, strong and tough,
It got crushed anyway. Well, this world is that rough!

"Rough"
Drew Poetry
~Andy Mwalasha

"HARD CHOICES"

"Yes" and "No" were hard choices. "No" particularly had a really hard shell to crack. So I went for the easier one, and said "Yes" every time to your selfish desires.

"Yes"

Every time you wanted to steal away a part of me.

"Yes"

Every time you needed the smell of my burnt soul.

"Yes"

Every time you wanted the smell of my blood and my 

wounds.

"Yes"

Every time you made an offer to crack my heart.

And when my being was all burnt down, you'd roll up my bills, cut my ashes into small stripes every night on your table with my credit card, and sniffle them up. I was so blinded by the glitter on your sword that I couldn't see or feel the cuts you were impaling on my skin.

"No!"

I finally found strength to say it. I finally cracked open the "No" shell. But it was too late. You had already scattered my ashes into the waves of the sea. 

"Hard Choices"

Drew Poetry

~Andy Mwalasha

"A REPEAT"

There is a beat in my eardrums, and it is your heart beat.

Rub your feet on my arms, and we will make some heat.
 

Slide on the seat, I'll give your thumbs, some sweet treat.

Your nails so neat, sweet as plums, every night's a repeat.

"A Repeat"

Drew Poetry

~Andy Mwalasha

"WHAT AWAITS AFTERWARDS?"

I must be crazy to write about this. But sometimes I look at myself, things and people around me, and think, "What awaits afterwards? What will be there when all this is gone, faded and the dust settled?"  
 

I like looking at myself and other people as fruits. Once, we never existed at all. Then on the trees that bore us, we began our existence as little adorable beautiful flowers. At that point, we were what humanity should be truly reflected as. Pure, beautiful, innocent, lovely, honest little beings. We were equal flowers, beautiful and adorable.

Slowly, we started our growth into fruits. Here, we defined our different distinguished tastes, as either the bitter ones, the sour or the sweet. We developed a seed in us as time went by, which is the reason for our existence, a driving force in us; what we'd call a soul.

As time goes on, we mature and ripen. At ripening, we tend to attract all sorts of pests that want to steal from us, the preciousness of our beings. 

It's so sad that some fruits never make it to the maturity stage or into the final harvesting basket. They drop while immature, get infected with worms before or while they get to the maturity stage or ripening. Some are tossed off their stalks by bad storms and some simply drop because their stalks have given up.

Here is the scary part, like every fruit, the flesh rots but the seed germinates and keeps on the cycle. So then, "What will be there after this, when all this is gone? When I've fallen or been harvested, when my flesh rots, will

my seed germinate? What type of a tree will I leave behind and what type of fruits will it bear after I am gone, faded and the dust settled?" 

"What Awaits Afterwards?"

Drew Poetry

~Andy Mwalasha

 

"THE TWELFTH BOTTLE"

He knocked on the door, but unlike usual, there was no response. No eager answer served on hugs and kisses that night like it has always been on all previous nights. 

He knocked again, "Honey, I'm home." Once again, there was no response, but the noise of crickets in the flower garden and distant conversations on the television from inside the house. He slowly grabbed the door knob, his heart racing and thumping like Zulu drums, and turned it. His head was a nest of questions, concerns and worries. He stealthily charged in and dropped his laptop bag and roses that he'd bought for her, on the sofa. 

"Honey..." He mildly and softly called out once more, checking the kitchen. Onions burnt coal black, smoking and sizzling on a pan, on the cooker, was the sight his worried eyes got served to. He turned the cooker off and hurried upstairs in panic, breathing like a bull in rage, shouting, "Honey! Are you home? Where are you at?" He certainly knew something was wrong that night. 

As he walked into their room, on their bed, she lay lifeless, eyes rolled inwards. Strangled marks on her neck, her dress torn, her lipstick smudged, her cheeks as red as ripe Scotch bonnet pepper and in the dead tight grip of her right palm was a piece of fabric. She died with a grip of a piece of the killer's cloth. 

She lay still. He collapsed onto his knees and shook her lifeless body. "Please, what happened to you? Talk to me!" She wouldn't answer. She was long gone. 

That was almost a year ago, and that guy alone in the house with several beer bottles on his table at 2 am in the morning, is the guy whose lover's life met brutality and was reduced to a painful memory, which he is trying to wash away with vast oceans of liquor. He's in despair and lost. 

"Rest In Peace Honey." He mindlessly mumbles in between his drunk belches every time he empties a bottle. And that was the twelfth bottle. 

"The Twelfth Bottle"

Drew Poetry

~Andy Mwalasha

"A BYE - BULL AGE"

Young men around, talking about; money,
women, and the number of bras, they toss,
but none about sermons, morals. It's funny,
we men, don't know of Christ on the cross.

I've got fingers crossed, and facing the cross, 
I've got sins crossed, but they still feel gross!
I pray for my generation and flip a Bible page,
Prey in revelation. We slip on a bye-bull age!

"A Bye - Bull Age"
Drew Poetry
~Andy Mwalasha

"A PERFECT SET"

I can't make love. My heart's castrated,
If life is a play, then ours is cast - rated.
Am I not the person, you'd anticipated?
For God's sake, I came. Am I accepted?

The stare in your eyes is cold; mockery.
Spice up the sour and bitter; more curry.

If your kitty scratches then please rub it.
Bunnies don't scratch,
you can have my rabbit.

The failure at luck ruined the master bet, 
Failure, at love baked in some self - hate,
First, make self-love, your most inner pet.
No perfect pair? Let's make a perfect set!

"A Perfect Set"
Drew Poetry
 ~Andy Mwalasha