Going Out With A Kiss And Tell Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

You never know when you meet the partner,
that there is a hole in his chest that seeks to brag,
about what you did when you were together.

Caught off guard you let down your own,
you miss a beat and he records it for the future.
Like a machine he mumbles this and mumbles that,
you speak in earnest and he whispers into the rhythms
of your bodies.

Then you see it by accident, the event for two,
laid out for the public in a sheet of mail or storying
that is now public and see yourself lied about,
but you know some of it is true.

You wish you could go back and withdraw
the hour with this fool, that has not chest,
for the cat is now out of the bag,
never to go back again, even if it had
nine lives, your one life is out there,
singing hallelujahs for the devil.

If I could kiss and tell, you threaten
this fallen duke that has a shaking
aerial that reads the news of the town
and spread the tabloid page on which
is written, the story of my integrity,
is fit for one place only. Jail.

Never again you say, will I go out with this,
for now you label and spread vernon
over everything in your path, for to be hurt
once is to be hurt twice. I wish I did not care
who knew this and that about me, but when
the signs its true are there, I hurt and hurt and hurt
only to hurt again. I do not know about you.

Who in their right mind, the sage asks,
would go out with a kiss and tell,
for he is doing it to you, for he has
done it before? I look at the eyes of wisdom,
and say, you know you are right. I am wrong.

This kiss and tell nonsense has to stop.
At the alter of obedience it must just stop,
before I open the door and let out all the stories
I carry in my gut out of respect for all those
I could betray. You know what I mean.
Vengeance is a malady I have lived with
for too long. I cannot die of it, or shake
an axe to kill with it. So leave me alone.
For all the world to see, now that you
have crucified me at the alter called 'goddess
of the field called love.'