Garth Rakumakoe

Inside Out

Feeling in limbo, I am defeated

Uprooted

Faith and validation are wavering

Label tongue out, seams

flapping in the breeze

I feel unreal, like some fiction character

There but not there, like the mannequin

no one sees, invisible

and naked

 

Ravaged

by my own narcissistic expectations

turned inside out,

veins screaming like buttons

facing the snow

I am torn – betrayed

by the same trust I betrayed,

acidities in the word-deed irony

of two wretched vengeful hearts

 

Zips stuck, pockets exposed

peg barely keeping me on the line,

I am on the other side

of a wormhole, window shopping

how things were, or should be

only, the store is closed

no bargain sale, on redemption day

 

This may be the actual

real world, of stuffed

mismatched color virtues

wrinkled and tumble dried;

though never ironed

Perhaps loyalty’s quality

is an overrated double stitch

It seems, when genuine still had longevity

what seemed real was the fantasy

 

The notice on the window reads;

There are no love guarantees

made in China