This Boy Girl Thing Has Us Damned Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

This water cupped in my hand,
As I lift it to my mouth,
This fountain that lets it out,
Knew it would end up here,
Dripping through my fingers,
Like the love we drink now,
Me and you swallowing hard,
As our taps let it in and out,
As go the rules of this pouring,
That allows rain to fill us up,
Just as our mouths allow it to.


You lap my person with your thirst,
You sap my strength and I swell up,
Then I shrink into your curve,
Go up and down as the hands that hold,
Like a game, the skipping rope,
That you throw up and jump up,
Only to land like a rubber ball,
For the tangling tells us to be,
In like manner this life we live.

Love me you say you do now,
Drink me, as you did then,
Your fingers wet with touching,
Me twitching with the joy of you I knew,
As I scratched untouched parts of you.

Live me in that position I was,
Sway me not to places that far away,
For I know when love is given freely,
And when it is taken ever so openly,
And then swallowed very smoothly,
By two people who are learning to be,
For they have read about it in books,
And seen it flashing on the screens,
That scream and say it is how it looks.

We never knew how deep to go,
Or how far the well we were jumping into,
Which had frog tunes as loud as the promise,
To sell frog legs to the buyer,
Only to find only one bull frog,
Made the loudest nose in the pond,
Where only four legs could be sold
In the pond that we had built,
Outside this leaking house of ours.

Leave me not when the bus comes,
Down the street full of girls,
In school clothes just like me,
Promising to open a world much bigger,
Than what we have for me and you,
Promised each other that this was to be,
Our divine tango with the doves,
That came to announce that we were a pair,
And flew away and left us looking,
At the flapping of wings such as we had,
That taught us to say the one curse word,
That we could utter under our breath,
And say damn, if only we were there.