Horned Lady

Horned Lady
Why was I born?
Was it for the satisfaction
Of hurting your “dear Son”?

Horned Lady
Why was I born?
Was it to fill my head
With suicidal and regretful thoughts?

Horned Lady
Why was I born?
Was it so I could listen
To the anger and hatred toward my father?

Horned Lady
Can you not see
I am in pain?
Physically, emotionally by your hand

Horned Lady
You have done much to me
But through all you have done
I cannot hate you.



by Hurting Son

***
Grade 11
***

Her Story ~ Siyabonga Dlamini

She suffers...
She suffers alone...
Her mind is forever clouded with pain...death....
This is not a poem...
this is her story...

Her spirit is broken...
Her will is crushed beyond comprehension...
mine and yours...
even her own...
this is not a poem...
this is her story...

She spends her nights sleepless and in pain...
Confused...
Her mind a war zone...
trapped...
alone...
scared...
this is not a poem...
this is her story...
She sees blood everytime her eyes close...
Her heart,soul and body are dying slowly....
Claustrophobic in her spirit...
She screams but no one seems to be listening...
Slowly suffocating...
Not much life remains behind...
this is not a poem...
this is her story...

Watching her pass slowly...
My hands tied and my mind in a frenzy...
I cannot help her...
She screams but through the glass I cannot reach her...
Broken to a point of no return she dies before my eyes...
She slowly accepts her fate but I don't think I can easily let her pass...
this is not a poem...
this is her story...

The tears I try to wipe from my eyes and hers...
Her spirit I try to restore...
I try to put my arms around her...
but all seems futile...
She seems to be too far in for me to reach...
trapped in a far corner deep in her mind...
weeping and hopeless...
this is not a poem...
this is her story...

If ever the visions come to pass and her flesh turns to blood and her bones to dust...
If ever her spirit leaves this realm and disappears to nothing...
If ever she is taken from me too soon...
I will spend the rest of my days in constant confusion and suffering....
Dying more and more each day...
Sitting next to her grave until I am also... no more...
I cannot begin to explain her worth...
Or the value of her presence...
only that she lives in my mind through thick or thin....
even through death...
this is not a poem....
this is our story...



© Siyabonga Dlamini

Matriculant 2016

For Love ~ Two poems by Siyabonga Dlamini

...For Love...

I've tried....
I've tried...
Countless times I've tried to please you...
to be like you...
but it's too much...
I guess dark demons attract bright souls
but I often find myself wondering if there's still anything bright within my spirit?...
The luminous spark you so untimely ripped from my being like a new born...
thrown into the darkness...
My heart you blackened and struck
with each tip of the sharp words spearing from your lips...
Excuses are hurtful but false promises slander and destroy beyond comprehension...
You've left me broken and shattered just as you had found me..
but maybe worse...
maybe even more confused than before...
so let me heal myself and be whole once and for all...
My excuse is that I did it all for love...
Don't cry for me...
Don't try to save me...
for as I say all this I am already swimming in my own blood...

...Drip drop...

It flows down my wrist...
Warm and tickling my palm then my fingertips...
yet the sting on the wrist and the throbbing of the veins doesn't stop...
it's colour captivating and bright as it starts to decay...
I've never felt more alive...



© Siyabonga Dlamini

Matriculant 2016

Suicide is Not an Act of Cowardice ~ Zaynab Asmal

Don’t tell me these kids are weak
The weak would never dance the line between life and death
Would never press metal to organ, press end to life
Because the hardest part of a suicide is that final step:
The fall comes after in the dizzying rush
But before that is the knowing that it all ends
That no more oxygen will come
No more kisses or bruises, no more shame or desire
The end stretches to an infinity of uncertainty
In those last few moments, there is a lifetime
To remember each caress and clenched fist
To consider what it would be liked to be locked in a box
Six feet underground, screaming
And those that still chose to jump, to slice,
To dice open their soul to the blank cosmos
They are brave
And in pain
And have been failed
By this world
Because their choice to press delete
To end game. No save. Nothing but blank screen
No credits left to roll over dead body
That choice they make
Is done knowing their souls have already dug their graves
Have already lived in the darkest recesses of night, screaming requiems,
And our split second judgement, our careless comment
(Why didn’t they just ask for help?)
Is a brand that won’t show on the body already burning.


©  Zaynab Asmal


***
Matriculant 2013
***

To the end of all our late night conversations ~ Zaynab Asmal

How I long for the right words
To walk you off that ledge and into my arms
To ease your pain for a millisecond
To watch a mental wound close
Under the warm weight of tender assurances
How I long for assurances
For the idea of certainty
That my words now won’t become a lie later
That haunts you at night when I’m not there
And you’re left wondering why life failed you.
Why you failed at life
Why failure is even a word
You who live among magic and light,
What use are words like failure?
Why drag a knife through a heart born bruised
Why slam standards onto a sky that never met a horizon
Why do we mark our happiness and sadness
By words like success or failure
When we should measure our life
By heartbeats hard won, by smiles despite tears
By days you dragged yourself into a garden
Instead of sleeping among the thorns.
How I long to open your mind
To your inner strength, your boundless possibilities...

But all that falls from my lips are mere trivialities
Random phantoms that dance among your pain


© Zaynab Asmal


***
Matriculant 2013
***

Personality Created by Reality ~ Phiwa Khoza

I remember the time
when I had a purpose in life
when I loved to live and
lived to love.

You might be wondering (and so am I)
where that girl has gone.
She existed only because reality hadn't
kicked in yet
but here she is, four years later,
displaying a personality created by reality
where she is suicidal at night
but wears a mask at dawn.

She was drowning in tears
but nobody saw her struggle.
She made pain look so good
without realising that it wouldn't
be able to wear off.

Today, I look at this girl
and applaud her for carrying
a burden a 14 year old shouldn't have to bear.
She's stronger than ever but held back,
genuinely laughs but still fakes a smile.


©  Phiwa Khoza


***
Grade 8
***

Untitled ~ Pryaska Goorhoo

photo credit: Fiery rose via photopin (license)

The hunger of pain is addictive.
It may not always be present,
But once it strikes,
It’s like a rose into the fire-
Beautiful but dangerous to pick out again.
Once it leaves you,
You are never the same again-
Bruised, burnt and battered badly.
The desire of it, however, still burns within us all.
We may be ignorant of this simple fact,
But we do crave that disappointing,
Hurtful
And torturous agony.
We may or may not know what we are actually walking into-
A simple obstacle or the most complicated trial of our lives.
We have that glowing hunger within us all and it is just going to grow
Until it burn us completely…
Turning us into small particles that only float in the air…


© Pryaska Goorhoo


***
Grade 10
***