Where the Earth folded
Great mountains arose
Where lands folded
Cities were born
Where rivers folded
Civilisations grew
Where flesh folded
Bodies were formed
Where skin folded
Faces appeared
Where clothes folded
Races emerged

But where souls folded
Coldness struck
Boundaries were drawn
Walls were erected
Divisions made
Differences multiplied
The clamour of the ‘I’
Intensified

Souls behind faces
Souls within races
Folded unto themselves
Into narrow, tight spaces

The work of this life
Unfolding my soul
Going beyond
One's name, one's role

Folds give form
Folds are the norm
Meet me without folds
Come as you are, pure and unrolled

Are you a crocodile
With a soft underbelly
Or a rhinoceros
With a tough hide
I wouldn’t know
When I saw you
All I could see was
A deer
Shot through the side.

Time,
You took from me
What felt so real
Aching dreams
Stuffed up longings
Solid chances
Throbbing opportunities
Until..
Now.
I see you
For what you are
A phage
Binding yourself,
Acquiring solidity
Through my imagined self
I am letting go
Claiming myself
Back from you.

You and I
Like an old, wicker armchair
Tightly woven once
Now fraying and loose
The little gaps telling stories
Of giving in and giving up
The gentle sag witness
To bending yet not breaking
The discolouration marking
Varied hues discovered
You sank into me
As I sank into you

Us

You poured into me
Like a sweet, golden trickle of honey
You stuck to me
Making me swell with your love
You whispered to me
That this time it shall be different
You were real to me
As real as the breath I took a moment ago

And when you flowed out of me
Rivers of love arose in my eyes and veins
You melted away silently
Still my heart thrums to your beat
You took me back to the place I was in before
Only now it was bathed in tenderness
I carried you some distance
You carried me to eternity

I would have you sentence me
To be a comma under you

Adorned

Eyes that looked at you, did not look for you
Lips that curled into a fake plastic smile
Ears that discerned the words you spoke
A nose which smelt the other in you
A beautiful woman I saw in the mirror but did not know to be one.

And then you made a woman out of me
And the blood which flowed thickly inside me turned to water.

My eyes full of knowing I now accentuate
The dark kohl underlines the new knowing I have about you
My lips are full and red with secrets waiting to be told
Hold me close and they quiver and burst forth
My ears thrill now to the touch of your fingers
Louder and clearer than any words
My nose I now embellish with a glittering jewel
That I may smell the rubies, pearls, the fumes, shadows in you

A woman is adorned
And in that adornment, a new man and woman are born.