this letter is addressed
to the loneliest love story I have ever read
I found you
lost in the covers of a margin
dusty
stitched onto a page of Anne Frank’s Biography
begging to be touched once more
morning came
the sun prayed pity into the library room
romantic literature students
nowhere to be seen
but in this letter
I found something else
in the way the words were felt
from the war
Wakeem wrote:
my dear, my far away star
the one in the sky
scaling emptiness from a home
afar
hearing the hollow heartaches
that the silence of the page projects
pillow cases traced with an outline of her face
daily dosages of words from across the sea
smells of a soldier forgotten
remember, Wakeem says
summer is the time of name giving
I’ve forgotten to tell you
this place inside of me is lonely
I often lay your letters down beside me pretending
that your naked body quietly touches me
the light snores
in between the vowels of you and I
lay empty
this letter is addressed
to the loneliest love story I have ever read
he scratched out a line
that resembled truth
if he were to die
lies were what soothed
he said that war is for the drunken man
in the beginning the war looked like you
a woman
waiting to bloom
bombs were the breasts
that longed to be touched
guns and drones drowned me in white wine
water traced over the inner lines of masculine eyes
blinding me
he says
to what this war was about
a bud in the bare field
of figuring a woman out
but when I got to see men die
at the hands of their wives
I realized that I was right
this war did resemble you
this fight
this time
I looked through you
Smoke drizzling
ashy memory falling from the bruised blue sky
touching homes
ones we destroyed
deceived
we learnt that the women the war resembled
stayed sleeping with us
under our hearts and iron bed mattresses
mediators in the spectacle
suppliers of worn out mothers
stretch markings of love handles
of guns
and buttons
that make babies die
I’ve forgotten to tell you
This place inside of me is lonely
I often lay your letters down beside me pretending
that your naked body quietly touches me
the light snores
in the vowels of you and I
lay empty
the letter is half destroyed
their story has been through war itself
how did I find it here
half addressed to the woman Wakeem loved
and then to me
a stranger he will never meet
a letter that I’ll never hide in books of loss
in concentrated closets of death
under the weight of a soldier’s chest
I have not touched my lover’s letter yet
If he had written me a letter
of what he truly felt
my war would look the same
an assimilate of love and hate
hanging
the way his washed out denim shirt does
behind the bedroom door
if I had to read the forgotten love letter
my lover concealed
I’d read about the woman he first loved
the one across the sea
I’d read about the words that rhyme with faith
lost
his silences would worship her
my lover’s letter would be no different to Wakeem’s
the only exception is
the loneliest love story I will ever read
won’t resemble me
I found you
lost in the covers of a margin
dusty
stitched on to a page of Anne Frank’s Biography
begging to be touched
once more
This issue features the winners of best of 2015’s Creative Writing programme at the University of the Witwatersrand.
