Do Not Die on the Vine
Four winters ago
I posed a question in prose
Asking if the love I knew was a garden
Comparing myself to a rose
You know how that poem unfolds
And time is the master professor
So this is how its lesson goes
Some loves are neither patient nor kind
They are not the Corinthians vows you intend to mention after your first marital fight
Love is coming to terms with absence and poorly explained withdrawals
Unanswered text messages and missed calls
The love of your life will lock their screen and answer unknown numbers in hushed tones somewhere in the halls
Your memories of them will be beautiful and violent
Making their presence known without any sense of good timing
They will come for you in the music and the photographs
The films you shared, your favorite bands
They will make your ugly visible in the looking glass
Four winters ago
I posed a question in prose
Comparing love to a garden
Stupidly asking if I were a rose
Like I said, you know how that poem goes
I have learned that love is neither patient nor kind
And if love were a garden
And I were a rose
I would be in a place where the sun doesn't shine
Somewhere in the shade, dying on a vine
Autor(es): Mandisa Makwakwa Masokameng
