  

I sought peace in a place I couldn’t find solace,
I sought comfort in a cold embrace,
The lies I told to keep moving forward,
Snow over my eyes to hide the courage I never had.
The sirens blared in the middle of the night,
I falsified sleep to protect me from truth’s fright...
Loans of love taken without a thought,
Are Now as the restlessness that my debt has wrought..
Where there was once warm silence,
Is engulfed by a cold cadence,
Where we once knew noise,
Is the quiet that inspires my prose
And all the walls we built in the sky,
See how they crumble, they don’t even try!
Rage and terror knock on my door,
But there’s nothing le� to take, it’s all gone..
Buried beneath the rubble,
Are the dreams of one so stubborn..
Who mistook folly for persistence,
And fed on lies for sustenance...
I sought peace in a place I wanted to call home,
I sought safety but I ended up on my own..
 
Lying in bed with the custodian of my company,
I stared at the dark ceiling thinking of how unhappy,
Sex had made me
...
Two orgasms down the night,
I longed for a chance to fight,
To set free the feral beast,
To set ablaze our ephemeral tryst
Instead she held me �ghter,
Whispers and hearty laughter,
I could feel her heart reach out,
I could feel her emo�ons shout ...
But they fell on deaf ears,
Because life was no more here,
Berate me all you want,
Call me something nice..a cunt!
I won’t be here either,
No sir, I’ll be much further..
Further than I’ve ever been from the corals of normal,
Far enough to touch between the thighs of sorrow...
Her words said talk to me,
Her eyes glistened with tears,
I tell you now it was folly,
Because my heart’s been silent for years.
Silence, the color of darkness’ bride
The cold embrace of sha�ered glass,
Lo behold I no more shall hide,
From my fate, from my curse

 
Si�ng under the shade of my dreams,
The one place in hell I’d rather not be...
Reenac�ng my darkest fears,
I screamed too silently for my future to hear..
A leaf fell from atop the tree,
Upon it a worm, or two or three,
And the darkness whispered ,”best believe”
They ought to chomp you up for free...
Gripped by terror my feet scurried up,
But there I was glued by her unsavoury sap,
To thorny roots with gnarly spines,
Behold, sorrow my concubine....
Encircled I was by those snake like roots,
And dragged to the beneath to feed her fruits,
One last breath, one last sight,
One last chance to give up my fight,
Alas, I awoke from deaths epiphany,
And sat uncomfortably under my future’s tree.

... is the voice that calls from deep within,
Preten�ous-check
Gregarious-check
Morose- check
Gregarious?wait!!
Hoarse and groggy, her words so sullen,
Let’s give her a name...I’ll call her Hellen.
Hellen speaks in half syllables
, she concocts parables,
a designer of what I call- fear!
She picks a paint brush
, she says to me “hush!”
She drabbles over in a rush, the canvass now looks like trash...
...
It was white when we started,
To create art is what I wanted,
My muse was ready, seated,
But Hellen, always so conceited...
So where I’d put green she’d put grey,
The color of something dead,like clay,
Where I’d put yellow she put red,
“t won’t be okay” she’d said...
It was never going to be okay,
Not when she sat on my thoughts all day,
Not when she whispered gloom in my ears,
Not when she robed herself in my fears...
It was never going to be okay,
For as long as my nights were spent drinking,
And my thoughts coralled and thinking,
That the creature I saw when I looked in the mirror,
Bowed, bent, broken,oh dear,
Was the truest version of we...
My mind robs my soul of a few moments of peace,
How I long for an eternity of bliss,
Quiet in the deep, beneath the veil of sadness,
Where pain feels no worse than sex,
And joy feels no ho�er than madness,
That’s the place I shall find rest!...


The feeling when my head hits the water,
You’d be surprised how long you can hold your breath in the sink,
Bubble, bubble
There’s no pain in the deep
And if you follow me under water I promise you won’t weep,
Hands �ghtly gripping the sink,
It’d be pre�y if blood wasn’t crimson but pink..
Bubble bubble,
I feel my chest �ghten,
The song calls out in the voice of a siren,
Coax, cajole, there is no hesita�on,
My journey is fueled by wicked dedica�on
Jerks in my foot,
Hold me down harder,
It’s much easier to shoot,
No pain, just color..
Water on my mind,
I could leave this act behind,
The fight is with pain,
There are no spoils, no gains...
Bubble, bubble,
I can breath under the rubble,
Dreams sha�ered to pieces,
No more regrets, no more wishes.

Been losing for a while now,
Don’t know why I’m s�ll playing.
They called it quits on the show,
But I’m s�ll wai�ng...
Been out of cards to play but I’m s�ll at the table,
Wanna get up and leave but God I’m not able...
Lost all my chips in a round of harsh plays,
Now hoping for an angel to come and save the day...
But there ain’t no angels coming this far down,
Desola�on the name I call this lonely town..
There ain’t no miracles either, coz we don’ believe,
So we live our lives like a pack of thieves..
We rob the hearts of some to fill up gaping holes,
But one love’s never enough for a broken soul.
I look to the heavens and cry out to my Deity,
Tears flow in streams and I drown in infidelity,
Where is redemp�on for those this far gone,
Where is that person we can call home...
So we flirt with death and kiss pain on the cheek,
No one told us strong was the new weak..
Don’t know how to win any be�er than how to exist,
I served happiness with a cease and desist...
So I’m all out of aces,
And I’m Coun�ng the paces,
It’s gonna take me to walk away,
To a new table, to a new play.
 
History will remember,
The tears I caused to flow,
The love I burned, the bridges I broke..
It will remember stormy nights and raging tempests
Punishment for feelings in excess...
It will remember bright fiery flashes in the night,
Because we brought guns to a heart’s fight!
And smoke rising up in gloomy plumes,
Karma the bitch portending my doom...
History will tell of poison ivies that grew,
From an earth soaked by tears old and new..
The scent of darkness that wa�ed forth,
Beau�ful tragedy, as far as it goes...
History will remember false promises and truer lies,
That caused hearty laughter and mournful cries,
Lost souls in the search for self,
Broken hearts decorate my shelf...
So let’s sing songs that serve as a reminder,
Of all the innocent hearts we’ve had to plunder,
Warming our souls and breathing in soot,
From the fire burning our lovers’ loot


25 close to walking out,

But my feet were too heavy to run;
They were too weak throughout,
And I was walked over for fun...
25 close to a code blue,
But my fingers touched the wrong hue...
They painted with brush strokes of crimson,
S�ll too weak to take it to comple�on...
25 and coun�ng,
We tell tales that mean nothing,
Wrap truth in a silver foil,
And choose to bake or to boil...
Snow watches me from behind the mirror,
Listening to tales of sheer terror,
Snow watches me from behind the mirror,
But he can’t see me any clearer...
25 shots, and never hi�ng the target
My marksmanship is worse than the heartache,
“Take one more”, she says to me
I’m unable to make her flee,
Take one more you won’t miss,
Her promise sealed with a poisonous kiss...
25 receipts,
My wooden box suit is made to fit,
No rest for the wicked,
But my reaper is already seated..
25 tries,
Hundreds of cries,
25 pills,
Or scars if you will.
 
Meal �mes are family �mes but my family is thin,
Two chairs across the table I stare at emp�ness my kin.
The silence between us only interrupted by chewing,
I listen to my self all I hear is madness brewing.
Knife scrapes against the plate,
I cannot help but wait,
To sandwich my skin between melamine and steel...
The blade glints as the light bounces off it,
The smile dancing on my lips is nothing short of morbid
Shadows beneath my skin they dance in slow circles,
I dream about how o�en mother will light me a candle..
Will she dream of my smile when she goes to sleep,
What parts of me will her mind keep?
The hideous boy who wore darkness to prom?
The mischievous son who lay naked with sin?
She will wonder where this evil was born from,
But I'm staring at it’s source, my empty, my kin...
Meal �mes fill me up with savoury thoughts of demise,
Marinated, broiled, wrapped up as a surprise..
­€
a feeling, a life form,
A way of living, where do you come from? A reaper, A thief I am le� in disbelief
At your brand of tyranny,
When will I be happy?;
Chained by your majesty,
I sing my song of misery,
From the deep caves of solitude,
My voice echoing in servitude,
To my unkind master,
Foe, Fiend, Father...
No light this far down,
To illumine your unholy crown,
Thorny wicked and red,
Ohh You’d take even from the dead...
Bound and on my knees,
You keep me on a short leash,
A few scraps of happiness,
And I’m struck with a bolt of madness...
Tormentor my master, my soul shines lacklustre,
Bereaved, and spent,
My manly will is bent,
Oh won’t you let me thrive,
Just one more night before I die...
Before I fade from this desola�on,
This suffering without consola�on,
I demand my redemp�on,
I beg thee for execu�on...

Stay not thy hand as you wield your sadis�c sword,

Free me from your grasp, send me to my Lord,
With one fell swoop , I beg thee , consumer,
Sever my breath in this final encounter..
Preserve not my body,
For it is sullied , and unholy,
Stained, by you, bewitched,
Like your mother that b...

***Gasp, gasp, gasp***

‚
Six years have gone by and it’s like a heartbeat,
Of a broken heart dancing to the tunes of melancholy..
It’s edges are healed but the pieces seem miles away,
Each half searching eternity for its own path to salva�on...
The nights are no more lonelier than they were then,
The sound of crickets chirping and frogs croaking has replaced my chocked cries...
My nightmares became day dreams and day dreams became faint memories
Of a cocktail of love and sorrow in my cup of adversity...
I s�ll seek vindica�on for the heinous act of robbery,
Ins�gated by the all too unfriendly hand of fortune..
By his singular silent consulta�on he had come to the utmost conclusion,
A conclusion that has changed the things that made us laugh into the things that
now make us cry..
The things that made us hope now making us long
for a glimpse, a sliver of that past euphoria that we took for granted under the
watchful and unforgiving
eye of �me;

and like all we too fell into the trap of unpreparedness..

caught unawares on a cold January 5th..our hearts ripped less mercilessly from
our chest than her soul
from this world..
phone calls deep in the cover of the night summoning such shriekful cries... Our
unsavoury tears
harbingers of the broken we were yet to bear witness to.
The broken in our fractured souls.. in our familial communica�ons...in the thin
fabric that held together
our past failures and future victories in an intricate mix of Godly hope and earthly
labor....oh the
rewards we had dreamed of that now seemed too impossible...
And as tears turned to blotches on my pillowcase
and the shards of glass lodged in my heart became pillars of support,
I learned that the greatest loss is not death, but the witnessing of it;
for in watching the curtains roll down on anyone's show and listening to the
drumroll fading is the most
potently morbid reminder that life is short;
I learned that the greatest loss is not death, but the witnessing of it;
for in watching the curtains roll down on anyone's show and listening to the
drumroll fading is the most
potently morbid reminder that life is short;
yet nothing lasts longer than it....that life is bi�er yet nothing could ever be sweeter.
..that of all the furthest reaches of this world, no place is more distant than two
lovers separated by the
sharp blade of a brief life; a boy from his mother...a girl from her sister..
.and as the seasons pass by in repe��ve redundancy,
I never stop hoping to feel the touch of clemency....
from the ever indulgent hand of a being so omnipotent as He that gives and takes
mothers.
ƒ„€
Black roses were lain besides the mouldy gravestone,
It read “forgo�en and finally gone”
Weeds like demons sprouted from the earth,
Two wrongs make more wrongs is what we call maths
There flows a river between two cursed ci�es,
Where we take turns to drown our purity,
Hopes and dreams follow closely in suit,

We spare no future, our path is brute.

We sit s�ll and listen to the silence speak volumes,
And string together tales that weave our costumes,
Masks galore, we’ve lost our faces,
So we let our iden�fy dri� to places..
We clothe ourselves in shrouds of laughter,
Afraid they’ll say we have a weak character,
And under the covers of the long cold night,
We cuddle our souls with our deepest frights,
Hold �ght to them lest they get away,
And parade their nudity in the light of day..
Can you hear the screeching sound of tearing skin,
Steel edges and cigare�e bu�s and blood in between,
Flaming Hot thighs and porn doesn’t come close,
My greatest failure is wan�ng to be yours..
Cat and mouse is our game with sleep,
These our secrets we’ll die to keep.
And in the night when my eyes suddenly part,
I can feel the weight of emp�ness crushing my heart,
Tears no more can drown the darkness inside,
So now I hang my wishes out under the sun;
Knot �ed �ght, they are �red to breathe,
Let the flowers be black when you lay down my wreath...
Dawn’s coming up now, sun’s pre�y like bu�erflies,
Yet the war rages on beneath the veil of lies.
E. Snow
…†
One last drag of my cigare�e,
Got me thinking my clock is late,
At half past dead it’s almost funny,
So I take one last sip of my whisky
And mumble something I deem to be wi�y,
To my nemesis si�ng pre�y,
As it seems down my smoky throat,
I indulge the most ironic thoughts;
Tiptoeing for ages on the precipice of sanity
My comportment flirty, like an adult movie,
Temp�ng my seductress, life’s nemesis,
Selling my soul for a flee�ng bliss
So for the chance to choose, to chart my own way,
I raise the finger in death’s face,
Reaffirm my mastery of morose soul,
Rejec�ng the incessant siren of death’s call
And though trumpets and trombones sent crumbling the walls of Jericho,
My own walls resist the unabated fate of mortals,
biding their �me �ll the crowning act of my play,
When i, not her, will choose that I fade away.

Title by A.10
‚‡
My shrink got �red of me,she said I can’t be fixed..
Said it’d be easier to separate shit and water that had been mixed..
I told her I’m the shit and she’s the water and we’d make a great pair,
She cursed at me, called me senseless and told me it’s over..

Yes, she was also my lover, my crush and my go to person,

All posi�ons she held without her knowledge...
a secret kept between my mind,
the things you can hide in the space between shit and water, none can find
them.
So I resolved that fixing was for the broken and I was anything but..
Goodness, the lies I tell when I am talking to my cat..
Also, no, I don’t have a fucking cat,
I have enough trouble seeking a�en�on myself; can’t become hunter and
prey all in one...
Anyway this is a prologue to my new song called color,
I hope it’s played in a shi�ngly sa�sfying movie called something like the
shape of water...
 ˆ

We’re dri�ers in the wind, floa�ng about like plas�c bags in a sand storm..
Our paths intertwined with infinite chaos,
Our name is faceless and our brand is loss...
Like birds we perch on the precipice of risk,
Watching the mundane unfold like a story from Poe...
Life’s the show we didn’t get invited to,
Tickets too pricy the tag said happy.
So we’d sat on the roof of insanity’s domicile,
And using the space between life and death as a stage,
We enacted the tragedy that was our wages,
For sins unforgiven,
Loves unforgo�en,
Promises unkept,
Sa�sfac�ons unfelt...
We danced on the �ps of des�ny’s spears,
Waltzed to the so� hum of our darkest fears,
Drank toasts to our homes going up in flames,
Tore up our lists of safe haven’s names...
The moon painted our voices a silvery sad,
Tiny reflec�ons of madness illumina�ng the sky like a rain of stars;
See how we choose to drive to the edge in our beat cars,
The revving, the screeching, the skidding is an orchestra,
They sing a song called the heart collector...
Sun rises and safety bleeds away,
Another face for another day,
Pop some pills coz we learned to be healers,
But in reality, we are just dri�ers
‰Š 
There you go again loving the way I smile,
There you go again following me for another painful mile;
Crying yourself to sleep into your pillow case,
See that brilliant smile on your morning face;
Pain�ng coats of red paint over the grey,
You’re losing your self but you refuse to say...
It’s ge�ng colder in here yet s�ll you stay,
This path leads to damna�on, there’s no other way..
Hair stands on my body when I think of you,
Beau�ful memories now filtering through,
Walls of concrete hiding corpses,
Of lovers and of my losses....
Minus one degree and You are star�ng to shiver,
Difference is when I was born is when I started to wither...
Blankets are unwelcome, there’s no room for safety,

Steel cu�ng my skin is my subs�tute for tasty...

The shakes are here now, my soul i tremble,
My mind my body my reality it crumbles,
Torn apart in half my sanity shears,
The space in between my eyes shot at with fear...
No peace when I sleep, I dream of long lost joys
Young kids playing in the dirt with makeshi� toys,
Our faces dirt ridden, our brand innocence,
Yet now I seem to have fallen away from the cuddle of benevolence...
Future's on fire, all I see is anarchy,
We raise our swords and chant angrily,
At life, at love, at all things dainty,
So we lay waste to love, our own souls slain,
Bleeding out on the pavement, not asking for help,
Eyes staring blankly into the dawn of another day,
ƒ‡
Go hard or go home,
No country safe, no country warm...
Three hundred lashes of the whip,
Bravery is like a mountain’s steep..
Laden like the camels back,
I wake up and say I’m heading to work...
Can’t build a house without bricks,
The hangman’s clock �cks..
Tik tok swing the hands,
I’m speedily running out of cards..
Choices are thorns each one sharper than the next,

I can’t pray anymore so I send God a text..

Grey �cks blue �cks I’m le� on read,
Karma bitch says her debt must be paid..
Pieces of silver I have none le� ,
So I sell my soul and call it the�..
Sit in the couch and sip on the silence,
Kiss whisky my girl and embrace her caress..
Feel the thrill of control unchained,
I dream of fits I le� una�ained..
Sleep departs, wakefulness my frenemy
I pop three pills like clockwork on a daily..
No peace within the confines of my king bed,
I hit the shower feel the water instead,
Steam rising like evil from my body,
The water bites my skin like something unholy
Turn up the thermostat twist the dial,
Let the flames consume beneath my shallow,
Hands on the wall,feel the water track,
Down the scars on my bare back...
  ‹
Beneath
the veil
of lies

TREVOR KWAGALA