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
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Matriculant 2013
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