AFTER THE THRILL

No more stars in my nights,
No more blues in my seas,
No more greens on my fields.
No more birds in my sky,
No more honey from my bees,
No more butterflies in my belly.
Where did they all go to?

The glow in her eyes,
The light in her smile,
The fullness of her laughter and the glow of beauty that permeates from her inside out.
No more to be found is her cheerful countenance,
Her soft encouragement with her mild and womanly dares that challenge me to go just a little further.

When last did we stroll hand in hand through the park?
When last did we lay arm in arm in bed with stories to tell and futures to spell?
When next will I feel that tingling feeling when you come into sight?

When next shall we sit on the beach at the candlelit dinner table or in the garden away from our worries just you and me?
Defy the rain to be with you,
Skip meals to tend to you,
Run far to be close to you, made enemies to be a friend to you. All these I did but how much more am I willing to do?

I thought it would last forever.
The rush, the spark and the shiver.
This triad that repeatedly assured my heart that it was drowning in love.
Their absence is the loss of that feeling.

I don't feel you because I've lost my sense and touch!
My touch of beauty, romance and perfect satisfaction.
My sense of attention, contentment and total feeling of love.
Now I have that urge to achieve a semblance of what used to be.

Good gracious! I've lost only the feeling but not the decision.

My decision to love you!

Written by Praizblaze

TRILOGY OF EMOTIONAL ABUSE

Words noisily flying around my head like Nazi planes,
Words I dare not utter,
Words gushing for release,
Words strong enough to turn mountains  into plains.
I stare at her with eyes red like Apollo
I wonder how she once took me to the moon like Apollo
Anger raising to momentum like Kobe Bryant's feet,
While like a spectator, I bask in the adulation of the feat.
This is war and I wasn't settling for defeat,
I shall keep shooting with silence until she cowers at my feet.
They say Silence is the best answer for a fool,
I say Silence is the best weapon of the wise.
I need not hit her, no am no animal.
I need not beat her, that ain't right.
But knowing her very weakness is attention,
I need only shut the gates of my affections,
Death from within
has always been the best Battle strategy
I keep calm and be still
let her drown in the sea of her own storm.

She keeps ranting and raving like the stormy sea Jesus calmed
Endlessly seeking words that I have into my mouth rammed.
She fights endlessly for a word from my mouth,
While I stand still like a statue, not making a sound.
Finally, out of ideas,she breaks down and begins to cry,
Her tears pouring like a rainy day in rivers state.
Her agony playing like a ominous tune in a solemn state.
I tilt my head like a pinball machine,
Playing hard like a farm machine
I can see her pain but I play blind,
United, tightening my emotions till she's left back.
Sweet, sweet revenge.
This silence, kills and leaves no remains.

What remains after natural disaster
Is nothing compared to wounds she fester.
My silence had cut in deep like hot knife on butter
Every of her walls pounded like a mortar.
She grows cold, so cold,
Frozen stiff like an icicle.
She begins to fall, falling hard
Like rains drops from a pregnant sky.
She grows lonely, so lonely
Like a dismembered wheel from a bicycle
She begins to spin, spinning hard,
Losing her soft as the seconds go by.
So it seems, so it is.
She was carefully losing her wit,
Her heart returning to its rhythm,
She was no longer ready to listen,
No longer caring to know how I feel,
No longer wanting to mute my silence,
Instead joining me to tune up the volume of the silence
Instead on her lips she puts a seal.

IF YOU'VE NEVER...

If you've never woken up in the middle of the night to find a strange figure in your room, barely dressed, with hands over your mouth to prevent the sounds you might let out, then you have no right to judge me. If you've never ever been so confused as to why your cloth is being ripped off while you're being warned not to shout so as not to get into big trouble, then you have no freaking right to run your tongue. 

A hand is caressing her body and she's longing for fresh virgin air because of the stench of alcohol and cigarettes choking her. She's unable to escape the grasp and it's as if the more she tries to resist, the deeper the fingers crawl into her skin. Maybe she's just 4, totally oblivious of what is being done to her. She thinks that she's getting her punishment for being naughty and she doesn't want marks to be left on her skin because her friends will call her 'ugly'. In that case, she's lucky to still have her innocence and little or no memories to taunt her later, she might not even remember what happened in a few days to come. Only if it ends that night.

                      *************************

I am fifteen, Thelma is my best friend and she is eleven years older than I am. Dan was her boyfriend and they were madly in love. I had my fantasies and dreams, I wanted a boyfriend just as loving and sweet as Dan. He was so nice to me, he bought me nice stuffs and always complimented my looks. I only stole glances at him and found myself blushing, he had the most beautiful green eyes ever, they could stare into my soul and properly let out the fact that I had a crush on him. Dan was perfect.

Last night, I woke up to find Dan in my room, I thought he came to talk as usual. I was only surprised that he hadn't knocked or woken me up. He just stood there wearing a smile and looking at me like he'd been possessed. Before I could say a word, Dan was on my bed, holding me too tightly and saying stuffs that I didn't understand at that point. I think it was something about loving me more than Thelma and desiring me so much that he had sleepless nights. I thought we were just going to laugh it off in the morning and continue living as if it was just one of his sleepwalking madness.

Dan didn't leave, instead he started caressing my skin and putting his hands underneath my clothes. I thought Dan was really cute but I hadn't considered going intimate with him. I had never been with a boy before, only kissed a silly one once in school. I tried to stop him but he paid no attention. I felt something hard on my nightgown and that was when I noticed he only had his boxers on. He was trying to take off my cloth and I was begging him to stop. It was as if I was watering the dessert as he continued his tour on my skin.

"I promise you'll enjoy it. Just relax and let me show you love, Mara."

I tried to scream but it was trapped at the back of my throat and all that came out was whimpering. He started biting my lips, then my nipples. He aggressively inserted his fingers inside me while I tried to get rid of him. Before I knew it, he was inside me and was thrusting back and forth so vigorously that I almost lost consciousness. After my frivolous efforts to stop him, I opted to stay still until he got bored of me. It took an hour or thereabout and he was done. He lay wasted beside me for a while before he started dressing.

He spoke, "You look so innocent but you're not even a virgin. You're so loose and open down there, Whore!". I was too weak to speak so I just watched him as he left my room with a disgust look. 

I swore not to tell anyone about what happened, I'd gotten used to such anyway. As I entered the parlour to greet everyone, Thelma ran to me with the broadest smile ever. She looked so happy and flushed, I wonder why she was in such a good mood. She brought forth her left hand and I sighted a beautiful piece on one of her fingers.

"Dan just proposed to me and I said yes. We're getting married next weekend", she screamed.

I don't think 'shock' can well describe my reaction. All I could get out of me was,
"Why so soon?"
"He's leaving for Canada in two weeks to practice his medical profession and he wants us to go together"
"Oh! Congrats girl" I had to try my best to feign a smile and push the tears back.
"I love you very much Mara and I'll miss you very much" Thelma said and gave me a long kiss on my lips before running off, probably to shout down the walls.
She looked really happy and I was happy for her.

                ******************************

Thelma looked lavishly gorgeous. The church wedding was in two hours and we're both excited about her getting married to the love of her life.

"I wish you can go with us now but don't worry, I'm getting everything ready for you to join us in two months."
"Isn't it too early? You guys should enjoy at least six months alone as newly weds". I wasn't sure that I'll ever be with them over there at all.
"Rubbish" Thelma said, caressing me on the cheek and holding my hands tight. "You've been in my life for so long, even before Dan. I can't let you go dear, you know I love you very much"
"Of course I know. I love you too girl."

             ********************************
The church wedding was beautiful but the reception was even more heavenly. Words couldn't describe how the place looked, as if it was taken out of a book of fantasy. Everywhere and everyone looked beautiful. The flowers, roses and bluebells. The ornaments, the centre pieces... Everything looked breathtaking.

Thelma changed to another amazing dress and she looked so beautiful as ever. Dan whispered into her ears and she laughed loudly, so much happiness. As the maid of honour, I sat beside her and I filled up all our glasses for a toast. Dan stood to begin.

"A toast to my beautiful wife. God bless the gym that brought you my way" we all laughed. 

Thelma couldn't hold back her joy. She held my hands and blushed like a teenager.

"I had to borrow words from my darling Shakespeare to make this toast to you. It's my promise to you my love.......
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending..." He coughed.

"Oh sorry, I feel there's something in my throat. Maybe Thelma's love is choking me." We all laughed again. Such a funny being.
He coughed again, this time beating his chest hard. As he tried to continue, the cough came again and this time he grabbed his wine glass to clear his throat. Thelma got uneasy and held her forehead as she got up to help him out. 

"Don't worry love, I'm fine. You're the one looks uneasy... Are you okay?" Then coughed again.
"I'm alright. Maybe I've had too much drinks," Thelma sayed and laughed, gulping down another glass.

When Dan didn't reply she looked to found him on the floor shaking vigorously with blood gushing out of his nose and eyes. Everyone surrounded them and Thelma cryed helplessly. Her shout got fainter by the minute and she soon laid beside him, dead too!

                 ***************************
I moved in with Thelma and her family when I was four, after losing my parents in a plane crash. We became more than sisters, we were inseparable. I loved her so much and she loved me too. She loved me so much that she snuck into my room every night with a dildo that she'd stolen from her mum's room. I refused her at first and fought hard until I was weak. She inserted her fingers into me, and then the object too. I screamed out but no one came to my rescue. Maybe the rain swallowed my cries. Thelma had started hanging out with a new group of friends and they taught her to puff smoke from a stick and also steal whiskey from her dad's bar. She did weird things with my body and made me touch her too. It went on for weeks and I stopped trying to resist her, I loved her and I wanted her to be happy. I didn't know what was going on but she seemed to enjoy it as she made sounds and laughed hysterically while I sobbed in pain.

"I love you Mara. You're the best and I'll never leave you for another, I promise."

It went for years. When I was of eight or nine, I tried to end it when I found out it was wrong but Thelma wouldn't hear a word of that. I stopped complaining and it went on until Dan came into the picture two years later. I didn't mind, her new boyfriend made her loosen her grip on me and I was relieved. I loved them both equally and I let go of the past. Oh yes I did, Until Dan resurrected the demons within.

                 ***********************
If you've never been through what I went through, if you've never loved like I did, if you've never been loved like I was, then you have no right to judge me or call me 'wicked'. If you choose to judge me still, your wine glass might be the next to have an extra substance, beautiying it!

Written by Nwana Adanna.