Busisiwe DhlaminiMaybe you’re afraid of love
because you still think it’s about breaking off pieces of yourself
and handing them over.
Maybe it’s hard to admit that the heart break you are avoiding
is one often done by your hand first.
Maybe you loved a beautiful empty thing,
filling it with enough of yourself to make it look like something.
Maybe it was your things that you were loving,
and they were only a vessel those things sat in.
Maybe you left your things there,
and it’s really you that you’re missing the most.
Maybe you need to forgive yourself
heal
and love again.
Maybe next time you shouldn’t go into it with promises
of your pieces,
because love would never ask you to break apart
just to hold it.
Maybe now you can collect these lessons,
get to know love’s real hand,
and see that it doesn’t hold knives.
Forgive yourself
heal
and love again.
You’re safe now.
Busisiwe Dhlamini
