Author: The Divine Bandit

See, I don’t want a luh… luh… love that whispers lies between soft kisses.
Nor one that starts with poetic vibes but ends with tone deaf silence.
The sun came and set on every bright promise, and I am still standing in the dark.
Because I refuse to chase illusions that vanish with the dawn.
I don’t want to use far-fetched faith to build love an altar, I want love that is its own proof of existence.
I’m tired of working hard to satisfy love that fades before I can hold it.
I don’t pen this with the naivety of a hard-won hopeful heart.
I don’t even try to rhyme, because love dances in your eyes for a second but lacks a permanent rhythm.

No, I don’t want a love that leaves my brain empty and a heart that’s fake full.
Because madness is loving something that would never have your back.
I don’t have to count the stanzas in this ode to love’s eternal hell.
Because we have arrived at roads that are crossing and the train is not pausing.
This is not a poem, it’s just a eulogy of feelings.
Scarred like a young Simba yearning for guidance from Mufasa.
I came to learn that happy endings are only for children’s movies.
Even as I offered my jacked arms to save the almost drowned lover that arose.
In the end it was an almost choreographed loss.
Bringing with it the realization that I’d always reached for something that was never really there.

See, I wanted a love whose language embodied our sensual lingua franca.
Thought I could make true affection more local than international romance in Casablanca.
But now I know love is only fluent in goodbyes.
I once thought it was love when it drugged me to hearing colours, dragged me to feeling nervous.
Now I know it’s just a shaken withdrawal, stirring hopeful hallucinations of something I never had.
This kind of love created nostalgia within seconds of its passing.
Now it’s just a beaten loop of mistakes I keep replaying.
I thought love was a present whose gifts are seen in the future.
Now the future is just a graveyard of what-ifs and never-was.
The emotions overlapped and the melee inside love’s octagon only ended in heartache.
Her shadow parallel to mine, I watched her, knowing quite well we would never meet again.

This writing is just me talking, I’ve grown tired of conversations.
The thematic synopsis aimed at you because you said love was real.
When you held my hand and stole more than moments.
But you see, I am a different kind of person now, colder even.
I once carried the flag for love, but blind belief is just another word for deception.
Like an overplayed song, I got tired of the sampled melody on further reflection.
Now love is just static, white noise, a sound I’d rather not hear.
Our love was the painting that looked its best because it was incomplete.
Now I see it was never art, just scribbles on a ruined canvas.
The knots I felt in my stomach? They were just warning signs I ignored.
Tying me to a destined death on hills of red flags left unexplored.
We added colour to the life we created, but it still faded.
I tried to hold on, but love bled through my fingers, unaided.

See, choosing your happiness over mine is not a smart objective.
It is a losing game, a prize that love never lets you keep.
These verses are barely from my thoughts.
Each word here is a scar, and I am yet to run out of pain.
We thought we were writing from the wisdom and experience of getting burned.
All that time we were strumming a requiem to a teenager’s dream on broken strings.
Our journals didn’t hold the same ideas, the writing didn’t rhyme and neither did we.
My invalid dreams, now dead and buried.
In fact, they are no longer dreams, just faded echoes.
I traverse this unloved life as a ghost of who I was.
From a writer, a dreamer, a lover, to currently counting the furrows on my brow.
Now I’m a cynic, a realist, and in the dance of love, I seem to break a heart with every blow.

You were meant to be my last word, my last note, not my last mistake.
Now each day, I rewrite my story, and love is no longer in the plot.
Every moment we had is just a photograph I’ve shift-deleted.
The moon listens, but she no longer gets space to speak.
Love was once my confession, like a sin unforgiven , it’s now my regret.
Living while loving was once interchangeable, now it’s a contradiction.
When I soar above, I do it alone, no longer chasing stars.
When I put down the last notable word from my pen, it will not be the end.
Because love never leaves but lingers in the empty spaces it leaves behind.
My mind is a maze, but I no longer want to be found.
My mind may amaze, but I choose solitude over a jigsawed heart.
I’d rather get lost in my own thoughts, finding safety in the echoes of silence.
Words created the illusion, promises built the farce, while cruel lies tore love apart.
My words may seem to be never-ending.
But love? Love is done pretending.

10th February 2025