I always want to see her smile

when she looks at me//

the secret thoughts that cross her mine

when she looks at my picture in the frame

The smile when she calls out my name//

on rainy days.

 

In her thoughts we rendezvous in secret places

tucked away in mental paradises

Where each touch is enough to last ten thousand

lifetimes.

 

When she smiles the sun rises

and flowers bloom and she//

She is consumed in the certainty

That I love her.

 

I love her just so I can see her smile//

See, a woman that doesn’t smile

Dies a little with every breath

Her soul seeps through the cracks

Placed in her broken heart//

And like mother earth;

She dies from the love she has given

To ungrateful men who pump

Her emotions from her soul like oil

Dug out like gold and diamond//

Her skin like soil has been bruised

by pesticides and fast-food Styrofoam

While she suffocates from the pollution

From the emissions of men she gave birth to;

Whose only gratitude is found in their liquor-stained breaths

And quoted scriptures that promise nothing but recessions//

Her smile turns into hurricanes with each “bitch“

That falls from the lips of men she only wishes would love her

 

She just wants to smile again

And I want to wipe away all traces of her pain.

Because when she smiles

I can hear the angels sing

And the flapping of their wings

That push air deep into my lungs

Allowing me to breathe

 

So I guess you could say that when she smiles…

I come alive!

 

© 2007 Tshombe Sekou