Common Differences
They were complete and polar opposites
In every single way
And neither one of them ever knew
Exactly what to say.
The both had words in their heads
And both had words on a page
But both felt trapped and neither
One knew how to escape this cage.
They came from different backgrounds,
Came from different starts.
They had different minds
Had different hearts.
They knew different torture
Knew different pain
But both knew they loved
The smell of falling rain.
In the worlds of these two people
There were different beasts to tame.
But they did have one thing in common
They knew how to love the same.
Differences
They looked at different skies,
Looked at different seas,
Knew different yous,
Knew different mes.
They walked in different parks,
Walked in different streets,
Admired different heroes,
Knew different feats.
They took different pictures
And all in different frames
And they were both players
But in different games.
With his storyline going one way,
And hers going another,
Each one needing something,
Each one needing the other.
Not knowing how to find the thing,
Never finding the other one,
Felt like looking up on a clear day
And being unable to find the sun.
Like opening a door after walking through it
And not looking before crossing the street,
Their lives weren’t perfect,
Their lives were incomplete.
It was like jelly without the jiggle
And wood without the grain
And rain without the drizzle
And love without the pain.
Like the Yin without the Yang
Like black without the white
They both needed each other
To make it through the night.
They needed to have each other
In order to feel complete
But they’d walk through life
Never, ever to meet.
Dream thoughts
He awoke
With thoughts flowing through his head
And tears causing
The stains on his bed.
Having lost the
Dreams he had
And had woken up
Feeling a lot worse than bad.
He had felt depressed,
He had felt alone,
He felt isolated and
Completely on his own
Having lost what he had
In the dreams of the past
And if anything he knew
It wouldn’t last.
Because she had disappeared
When he woke up, it seems.
And she was only his
Girl in his dreams.
Everything was worse
The wind was a little slower
And the sky, less blue
And the waves a little higher
And the clouds greyer too.
The water a bit colder
And the grass a bit dryer
And you were more tired
Because the buildings seemed higher
And protagonists
Seemed sadder
And villains
Seemed gladder
And the alleyways seemed darker
And the lights were way less bright
And everyone and everybody
Struggled through the night
And everyone seemed sadder
Until the sunrise
Because everything was worse
Until she opened her eyes.
Reflection of Reality
Her hair shone in the sun
And he compared it to liquid gold
That flowed from the lake of heaven
But he was never so bold
As to talk to the angel he saw,
The one that was in his eyes,
And whenever her saw her
In his stomach would be butterflies.
The classic old love story,
The classical love tale,
The one involving a guy and a girl
Where love would never fail.
Where roses were red
And violets were blue
And sugar was sweet
And she loved you.
Where the moon was always full
And white doves always flew
Where she claimed it was love
And it would be true.
But this was not the case
Or so I was told
And her hair wasn’t comparable
To the liquid gold
And the roses weren’t red
And the violets weren’t blue
And sadly in this case
She didn’t love you.
© Uwais Coetzee
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Grade 12
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