Inconsequencial ~ Thokoza Lushaba

Carving my own fate
Into the sand of Life's beach.
Grabbing destiny
By the scruff of the air around it.
Trying to walk around the mountain of Life
Thinking it's a mole hill.
Rappelling across the surface
Of the lake of Self Determination.

Like Midas with his touch,
Everything I grasp turns gold.
While that may be exciting to hear,
All I touch turns out to be gilded,
Not Golden.

As permanent as the present,
My presence is remembered by most,
But forgotten by all.
As relevant as the town I came from.

As you read this, try to act interested.
Do me the honour of thinking of me,
At least for the brief second you've
Spared to look at this scribbled text.
That way, I can finally say
That I mattered to someone -
Even if only for a moment.

I wouldn't dare ask for more,
For fear of disappointment,
Because I know that will be
Another promise broken;

And just like every other time,
I'll be the one that someone has forgotten.



©  Thokoza Lushaba


***
Grade 12
***

Numberless, Match, Deaths ~ Uwais Coetzee

Numberless 

Thoughts are tangible, malleable,
folding a place for your mind to live
within the confides of the home inside.
Moulding together your minds ideas
to mean something that no other mind could decode.
You are your minds worst nightmare,
a thing to control and manipulate an individual of thoughts,
an independent ideology creator who knows no bounds other than your head,
every nook, cranny, every crease.
Your mind weaves itself together
with numberless thoughts that populate the place you call your own.
You're your own minds worst enemy.
Uncontrollably controlling the mind that controls you.
You there, you are your own minds nightmare.

Match

One at a time.
Burn the things that begin to make you feel
like you aren't a cup overflowing and not half empty or half full.
One at a time you burn away those who make you feel like
your joy needs to be flown at half-mast for their benefit.
We burn them, one match at a time
from the box we keep to save ourselves.
One at a time we're going to ignite the shine,
let yourself light up, like the stars even behind the clouds
that we think cover them.
It's all about perspective.
They think we aren't burning, 
they can think that we aren't going to shine
as if we weren't meant to,
the smokescreen of the joy we perpetuate
will be the clouds that mute our stars from their eyes.
We shine, we burn, we live and love,
one match at a time, we'll be.

Deaths

How many of us are whole? Us who claim joy and prosperity.
Us, the ones who fight and love in the light.
We, the ones who hate and cry in the dark.
We hole ourselves away, claiming to be whole yet becoming less and less.
Losing bits of the miniature souls we have left,
we smile, we move, we love, we hug and kiss, we embrace.
Us who claim to have died a thousand deaths
to become the person who stands before the rest, as a
whole person, without need of the validation’s others seek.
We smile, we love, we move, us who claim to be whole.
Die. One more time and rise like the Phoenix
through the ashes they continue to pile on your chest, rise.
Dive, like the rocks they chip off the cliffs of your integrity, dive.
Climb, through the cuts they etch on your liquid heart, climb.
Be whole, without the need to die more than we have already.
Live and be whole like the moon that shines dull but entirely true.
Pierce through the nights like the wolves who cry wolf.
Soar through the sky like the crow who cries murder.
Be, through the times of pain, the times of trying and finding peace.
Be. Free


© Uwais Coetzee


***
Matric 2018
***

Rockery, Zodiac, Intimacies ~ Uwais Coetzee

Rockery 

Beside the garden,
in the yard of where my peace is built.
The rockery of pieces that build up who I was.
Pieces of me, pieces of pain,
hurt, love, hate and my soulful breakings
that all build up a place from which I gain life.
Our purpose is to be at peace
and peace is attained by loving who we once were.

Zodiac

To aspire, to shine,
 to be a light in an existence shadowed
by the ones who aren't.
 Looking down at the ocean,
the blankets of waves we're ever so drawn to.
 Looking up to the skies of zodiac
and lights of the space we know nothing about.
Galaxies we've never seen, places we've never been
but the celestial draws us up to a place we dream of being.
People find any reason,
any micro-excuse not to be where they belong.
We find words to back up our spineless fear of living life.
Life lives whether we do or not so we may as well.
Shine. Live. Look down and look up but never wish to be anywhere else but here.
Never fear.

Intimacies

People strive for feelings.
Touching a face you love,
grasping a hand you tenderly need
more than you gasp for the air we breathe.
We want physicality more than the love beyond it
because it validates our need for intimacy.
Our need to know that we have love.
Our need to know another warm bodied person
that knows the pain you know,
another person who knows the cuts that cut you too, loves.
A person that could have not loved you, does.
We value physicality more than intellectuality and spirituality
because we can't feel those.
We know them.
We value things we can feel more
than anything we could ever know
but they are intertwined and you never knew it.
You can't know spiritual understanding unless it's love.
You can't know intellectual love until you know love.
You cant love anything you could find.
Nothing comes close to the intimacies of the mind.


© Uwais Coetzee

*** 
Matric 2018
***

Seed, Cunning, Narrow ~ Uwais Coetzee

Seed

People move, walk, wander through life,
like a leaf floating down a river
or like a boat on the wind.
Planting a seed in every boat and leaf
we bump along into, 
hoping they grow to be who we wanted to love,
trying to mould the branches,
guide the stems,
lead the progress.
We grow by growing others into who we want to be.
We love by loving others and setting them free.

Cunning

Behind the woods in a forest, 
A long, long time ago,
Lived a fox of sly maneuver and
A mind of multitudes more.
Stealing not but riches and gold
Stealing less of material goods
For which people so hard had fought.
Instead he stole love and hope
And every lingering happy thought.
One day in the forest of spoken,
A passer-by by did meet said fox,
A passer-by of beauty and folly
And had beautiful auburn locks.
She said "Fox, don't run, don't worry.
I never intend to harm, I'll stay far but
I ask just a simple question,
What makes you who you are?
Why are you so cunning?
Why are you so sly?
What do you get out of stealing our joy?
All I ask is why?"
The Fox replied, while a smile,
Before running away all free,
"it isn't that I'm so cunning, I'm just
As cunning as cunning lets me be."

Narrow

I could follow you, endlessly, along this path you're leading me down.
A path of roses, of crossroads and feelings,
of love and bliss.
A narrow path filled with the joy you bring.
But the narrow path has edges,
the narrow path has thorns on the roses and depression in the feelings,
heartbreak in the love and ignorance in the bliss
but I could follow.
But following a narrow path
behind someone so bright does nothing but cloud who you are.
Your narrow path was never an option
 I wanted to take but I could have followed you forever.
A narrow path of inevitable hurt but it had you.


© Uwais Coetzee


***
Matric 2018
***

Beckon, Salt, Parables ~ Uwais Coetzee

Beckon

She's like the sun.
A smile that knows that it shines
through the clouds on your dull days.
She has an influence that would make you follow her
into the labyrinth the moment she would beckon,
the moment she would light up your light
would be the same.
But just like the sun she disappears
only to appear after due.
She's the sun, you're the clouds
she shines through to create the silver lining where there is none.
She's the sun that beams rays to dry the ground she walks upon.
She's the sun whose light becomes a beacon to which we fly.
No matter which way it runs,
no matter where it shines,
you follow the sun.

Salt

Smiles faded.
Smiles were worn away from the home
in the mind of the person you had once been.
To rub salt in the wounds of a cut so gory
it told stories without being understood.
You broke yourself with a mindset that
 was not who you were.
Being toxic applies as much to yourself
as it always did to anyone else.
You're human too and it's
because you're human that you
have the unflappable nature to build yourself up again.
Like the sand on the shores,
the snow in the mountains,
the leaves in the pile,
the hope in your eye, there will be more.
You will be whole.

Parables

The wind blew and the sky was blue
and the leaves were green, and we lived.
Listening to words of those unseen and unknown.
Parables spoken to the ears
of those that became in themselves the ones who spoke.
Words, like ideologies, like culture,
like love, like money,
is passed on.
Stories are the medium that passes on life.


© Uwais Coetzee


***
Matric 2018
***

Conversation, Harbour, Stations ~ Uwais Coetzee

Conversation

You call it conversation; I call it therapy.
The way words melt pain from us.
Like a magician pulling swords from the box,
 the leaves falling into piles
 through the wind on autumn days.
You call it conversation; I call it therapy.
 the words lift depression
like raising the weight off the shoulders of souls.
Like the water crashing down
to sustain the lives, we never see lived.
You call it conversation; I call it therapy.
Speaking under a sky that knows us all,
conversing under the clouds that cover us all.
You called it conversation, but it was always therapeutic.
Like love.

Harbour

Like a sponge draws water he drew her darkness inwards.
Trying to harbour her pain, try to contain her hurt,
attempting to understand
how painful being alone in the dark is.
To love is to accept the darkness
of another and care for it like your own.

Stations

We search for happiness everywhere
except where it's supposed to be found.
 We search window panes,
 city streets, golden fields, tops of trees.
 The stars that add the shine to our eyes,
the fluttering flaps of birds in the skies.
Over gates and beyond walls
through the wind that silently calls.
Stations, bus stops and in our home,
at night when you're all alone.
You'll find fake love you'll believe to be true,
but love isn't love until it starts within you.


©Uwais Coetzee

***
Matric 2018
***

Lie, Strike, Unluckily ~ Uwais Coetzee

Lie

Lie with me. 
Lie under the stars that preceded our lives here.
Lie under the constellations that know who we were meant to become.
Lie upon a rock flying through space but we feel at home upon it.
Lie with me beyond worry,
beyond stress and love
and hate and fear
and courage and pain
and joy and you and I.
I'm not asking for much.
Just your existence under stars
that are mightily oblivious to our existence
but know us just as well.
Between minds that share thoughts
and bodies that share feelings,
 inside hearts that beat and veins of blood that flows.
Exist beside me with our similarities and differences all at the same time.
 I ask only that we could exist under the stars.
Lie with me.

Strike

We became more.
More than who we used to be.
Almost like an awakening, 
a sudden strike of consciousness
into an already conscious brain. 
Like the waves on the sand,
we flowed into our own as if we were never really ourselves.
 To find what we love to do is to find love for yourself.
To pursue what we were meant to be
is to do nothing more than act out destiny.
Our blocks fell upon each other like the bricks on a house
that found itself laying a foundation after the fact.
Relearning who we were always meant to be,
is finding love for who we are.
Self-love.

Unluckily 

You met each other,
in a hope of becoming part of a whole person
with the broken pieces you placed together hoping they'd stick.
But smooth and jagged edges never fit
and you found that out
the way that's way harder than you'd have preferred.
But unluckily or luckily for you,
the breaking apart from one another
made you find the pieces
that fit together for who you were.
To piece back together you needed to break apart.



©Uwais Coetzee

***
Matric 2018
***

Sticks, Sullen, Ballad ~ Uwais Coetzee

Sticks

You know the bond when your insides
feel it in their insides and you smile
without knowing how not to.
Like the leaves on the sticks,
the branches on the trees,
the crunch of the grass,
the yous and the mes,
nature calls.
On a phone that never needed to ring
for you to know its here.
Like a message that you
never needed to receive to know you had it bad.
With fate pulling the strings and the clouds are all that sings,
the sky is on our side and we our love can find, nature calls,
and who are we to deny it?

Sullen

Sullen skies hung over us tonight
While we tried to spill our thoughts
into small enough containers to be understood.
Bubbling over to each other,
 trying to find the scars,
trace the marks of the days we laughed
and cried and failed but tried.
Balcony soliloquies that would pass as prose
between actors in a play amongst storytellers.
Experiences in search of an outlet
between people in search of a closure amongst themselves.
Balconies under sullen skies.

Ballad

Unrequited was the word that most would use.
You just used love.
Love is blind to the obvious as obvious as it is.
So even though we find ways to avoid the sun at every turn,
it still can’t help shining down. You are the sun.
No poem, no word, no ballad, no phrase could ever phase she who blocks the sun,
but your rays bleed down to warm the muse who found a muse in another.
Notes that can't help being played onto deaf ears.
Embraces on numb bodies. Love on loveless hearts.
Unrequited is what most use. We just say love.


© Uwais Coetzee


***
Matric 2018
***

Refusal, Craft, Prayer ~ Uwais Coetzee

Refusal

Refusal to see
Your beauty is like the stars
Being blind to their shine.

Craft

The world is quiet, holing itself away,
Writing, reading, playing, singing,
becoming a butterfly while in this involuntary cocoon.
We sit behind doors and sit behind gates,
Mastering a craft and honing ourselves,
awaiting the opportunity to shine.
So, when we find our way out of the cage,
through the bars, around the walls we find ourselves in,
the world would have rested its weary, travel worn legs,
ready to fly, ready to shine,
brimming with confidence like the world
was always meant to be mine.

Prayer

The sun left a letter in the sky
for the moon to find,
a letter of love, hope.
With desire that soon they
may share the same sky again in the day
when the moon felt out of place.
Dim, dry and away from the light
those sunlit moon days were all the sun could cherish
in the monotonous chain of existence.
The sun hoped and prayed for the moon
to spend those fleeting moments in view,
shining with the darkness that always lit the night sky.
Hoping, saying a prayer, the sun set for the night, 
wishing to see moon at tomorrow's first light.
I'm sun, you're moon. I hope to see you soon.



© Uwais Coetzee


***
Matric 2018
***

Fern, paper, Others ~ Uwais Coetzee

Fern

We stay. Away from others
But inside with ourselves like
A tortoise inside its shell with no
Place else to go but home.
Being forced to be by yourself
We’ll slowly learn to be
Content with who we are.
Like the wind through the leaves
And droplets of the fern
And the snow melting off the mountain
And the cracks on the earth
We become who we were always
Meant to be.

Paper

We write.
Through the days and the nights,
The weeks and the months, we write.
Through the highs and the lows,
The ebbs and the flows
We write.
Like water flowing through the grooves
And wind blowing above our heads
Through the blues and through the reds
In our rooms and on our beds
We write.
We’re meant to write like
We’re meant to feel.
We write like how paper planes glide.
We write like how birds fly
And babies cry,
People express and
People repress.
We write like life.
Inevitably beautiful and painful.
We write.

Others 

People look around for things
That they find beautiful.
Faces, flowers, skies, smiles.
People, backgrounds, suns, lives.
We find things around us that
We deem beautiful because it's
Often easier to look out that it
Is to look for beauty within.
We look at others and find
The beauty they propagate is often
Akin to the beauty we ourselves own.
It's like a mirror and not one way glass
in the sense that when we look at the beauty
in others they look at the beauty in us.


© Uwais Coetzee

***
Matric 2018
***

Entrances, You, Vision ~ Uwais Coetzee

Entrances

With the billions of people
That just happen to live
in this make real world we see, we
often forget that it isn’t always
about who we meet but also
how we meet these that we do.
Whether it’s me or you or us or they,
It’s the smiles, the waves, the hellos, the goodbyes
The hugs, the pats, the entrances, the exits.
The way we see the world is often more
About whether the sky is blue or not but
Never the depth of the sea hidden therein.
We always think about the fact that people
Come and go but how they do always stays.
The entrances we make and the exits we take
Are always the briefest of moments;
But the briefest of moments always seem to linger.

You

It’s always going to be you.
I don’t know you and
I don’t know who you are.
It’ll be you by the sun
And you by the moon
And you’ll be the soil
That’ll make the flowers bloom.
You will be the bow
And also, the rain
And you’ll be the blanket
To comfort my pain.
You’ll be the day to my night
And the night to my day
And nothing will ever come this way.
But I don’t know who you are
And I don’t know what we’ll be
But nothing else will matter, you see?
I don’t know you
And I don’t know if you’re real
But you are the only thing
That makes me feel.

Vision

A vision came to me in a dream
To show me the life I’d want.
A life of no worries and
A life with no stress.
A life where I’d be
Content with less.
A life filled with internal peace
And a world that could match,
A life in which the singles
We have could be the whole batch.
In waking I realize it’s not what we want.
A life of no stress and a life with no care
Is exactly what it appears to be, a vision
In a dream. The light is a reward
After the dark but the dark is inevitable after light.
So, sit with your mind through the
Dark and the light.
Console your dreams through
Day and night.
Bathe in the light
And sit in the rain
Because lie can’t be life
Without the pain.


© Uwais Coetzee

***
Matric 2018
***