Before yesterday

The plate with a pizza stares at me from the shelf,
An axe for a knife, a sword for a fork, a laminated drawing from
Before

The constellations turned upside down,
Orion looked so different from my balcony,
Before
I would search the sky from my mum’s garden,
Before I found love, lose love, found love and lost it and
found it, and I felt like with you I struck gold, with your
Smile, green eyes, easy laugh, your everything that I would hold
In my arms until we’re old, I imagined
A house, smaller versions of us, running around,
Laughing, crying, sleeping, screaming, dying, waking up
Before yesterday,
Before,
Before,
Before,
I split us up, with
Tears streaming, screaming through my head
Your hair, your neck, your smile, your eyes, kindness,
I could be buried in, not cremated, but
I was burning and burning, fire flaring, emergency strobe light, ambulance blaring
Through the dead of night, raindrops on your window,
Wet tissues on the ground, I’m so sorry,
I’m so sorry, het spijt me,
het spijt me, het spijt me, I love you and miss you and need you to know
it’s for us, we tried, we tried, we tried, we
died we’re dying, I can’t stop crying
In your shoulder, heaving sobs, stupid sounds, blubbering shakes, tremors,
quakes, the raindrops pounding in my head,
Everything I’ve said, no regret, god I miss you, I miss you,
Ik mis je en god ik hoop zo dat je oke gaat zijn, het is aan jou,
Your heart is in your hands but it’s a mangly mangled up mess, I’m sorry,
Stinking trash can, almost full, tissues go in, shoes on,
I’m so sorry, we’ll be in touch okay?
I love you, come here, god I love you, ik wil je niet kwijt, sorry
this is confusing, I love you,
It’ll rain a bit less in ten minutes, jacket on,
Holding you, heaving, starving, dying, crying, there’s so much
Haunting me, smiles, sleepy eyes, messy hair, protein shakes that make me cry,
holding hands in the shopping aisle, i’ll always love you
and i hope you do too

het spijt me

Remember me

You broke my heart –
Your bruised, confused eyes, staring and searching,
Senselessly clinging onto the shell of who you were,
A lifetime ago, you now wake up every day
To another memory, you remind me of what you are,
You are lost

You’re a silent child, wandering the aisles of the store, eyes searching faintly for your mother,
You might be able to describe her hair, or her jacket, her name, though to you it would just be “Mum”,
Which you call out faintly in your heart,
Wondering where you are, or why you came, or how you got here, or who I am,

I can see a mind fading to black,
A final curtain closing quietly, yet without mercy,
It reminds me of a memory,

My grandpa, my opa, that stoic old man who used to think we were so loud,
When he tried to enjoy his silence, when it was still a choice,
Though he loved music, and the music of his hundreds of clocks, his endless time,
Till he was almost blind and deaf,
Each new memory fading sooner than the next,

When I shared a pizza with him in the garden
A simple salami pizza, but to him it was magical
I saw him transform back into
A quiet little boy, savouring every bite, so content for a moment,
Present and oh so precious,
When he was finished I would take away the boxes,

And soon after, a few months,
A few more cups of tea, a coffee,
And three pizzas,
He passed away peacefully in his bed.

Now I look at you,
Every time you come into my life,
With searching eyes, so confused and almost blind,

I can’t help but feel my deepest sympathy.
I want to cry at the sight of you, my poor child.
I’m sorry I can’t help you.
I’m sorry you won’t understand
Whatever I will say.
I wish I could help you find your peace, or
To take your hand and help you find your mum, wherever she may be,

But it’s not my time,
I’m so, so sorry.

Passing

Passing pleasantries
Ignored like roadkill
A plant in a pothole
Drowning in the smallest rainstorm
Living for every bit of sun I can catch
On whatever leaves I have left
Before
A deer eats my head
A car strikes it dead
Crashes into a tree
It collapses onto the street
Where she was about to cross
She now passes
If only she hadn’t ignored
A pleasantry

Tune

Sleep well, my friend.
Don’t think about the war.
Tinker away on a tune, on your guitar.

Drown out the guns,
Drown out the planes,
Play until your fingers bleed –
Till it drives you sane.

Tense

Clenched jaw, strained eyes —
The damned dishes are cleaned
By hands, stressed and tense —
I can hear the washing machine
Screaming and crying from the next room,
Alongside the dry, clean clothes covering my bed —
My bed that looks clean but hasn’t seen a clean sheet
In maybe three or six weeks —
I can’t do it all in one morning,
Not when I can’t stop, and I
Go on and on and on, with my jaw clenched
and my eyes strained,
my hands stressed and tense —
I can hear the washing machine

The South

Watch them come, watch them come,
On ships, canoes, and boats.
Watch them run, watch them run,
Through the woods, to the water –
Across the water they float,

Followed by fire, followed by guns,
Until they lose all hope.

What will they do, what will you do,
When you drain the swamps?
You destroy their homes, destroy their mounds,
Alas, it’s the way of the South.

The sandwich and the sidewalk

I saw God the other day, sitting on the sidewalk outside of the Albert Heijn.
A crown in the form of a worn and weathered grey beanie, I thought
It must be a tad too warm, but
He does work in mysterious ways.

He asked me for some change, and I told him
I used to pray to him, and ask the same.
Dejected, he asked for some food – a soft sandwich, perhaps, as he no longer had his heavenly teeth.
I got him a bacon and egg sandwich
From the bin with all the ‘aged’ produce,
Priced down to celebrate its final ‘best-before day.’
I figured it would be softened, and moistened by age.
The bacon egg combo is a classic combination, like
Man and sin, bacon and egg, man and bacon, and man and egg.

When I walked out with the soggy sandwich, a spark sparkled in God’s eyes,
A few tears on his cheeks, reminding me of the soggy bread I held in my hands.
He said he couldn’t believe I came back and provided him his heavenly lunch,
And he shook my hand, and gave me a hug.

I held him for a moment.

How did you fall so far?
Was your throne,
Your horse,
Your holiness
So high?

The taller they are, the harder they fall, and you
Were on the highest pedestal—my neck would break
If I tried to meet your eyes, your expectations, and now
I see you in your truest form.
You
Wanted so badly to be loved and adored by all,
And in turn you would grant us your conditional love, but
I guess you will have to settle
For a soggy sandwich.

Who knows

Your head found my shoulder,
And we lived conjoined for weeks
On end, side by side, some said
We were more than friends –
One wished, and one knew
We were, but we
Were not –
Would not be what one
Wished we could be
But who knows what,
And these things are still confusing,
As though we split, you
Changed and stayed
The same, and I am someone else
Every other day, though
I could say the same for you,
As though you stay the same,
You’re stuck in perpetual static change –
Unchanging and everchanging,
I loved you, and all your little things –
Your mugs, your painful patience,
Your hair I would find everywhere,
Your eyes when they would stare into mine, so late at night,
Your smile, your lips when they would meet mine, or simply exist –
I would have worshipped every freckle, birthmark, and scar
On your body, and soul, but
You are someone else than the one
I mentioned before,
And in the end who knows
Who is who and what is what and who we are and what we are not