Love In A Burning Garden Poem by Anu Soneye

From the tale of I and my lover, I keep asking, wanting to discover of what manner is the love that stuns men and of what fashion is this emotion that daze them
for what love is I know not but only of its flaws and its rot
but men do I hear speak of the good or should I say, its seeming livelihood.
That love for them I hear to be a diamond; dazzling and fulgurous like an almond
but the love I know and feel Is nothing of such. Nothing but a withered stone, a rough touch.
For deep inside I feel a strong pain, a great divide
like the parting of the red sea and like a messed-up dread pee.


Some say love is a harmony of notes that play in the heart;
creating a beautiful piece, a masterpiece, a musical art.
Capable of joining broken pieces of a lost soul just by merely sharing a meal of milk and eggroll.
But the love I know is not.
It is like an apricot but with black blossoms and the stink of a dead possum.


Some say love is a calm sea that keeps the atmosphere cool.
Some say it's like the sky; the sky of an alien planet colored red-blue.
But this love between I and my dear is different, unique and difficult to explain.
A chemical mix of love and indifference like a raging sea with the fetor of a whale's pee.


Night and day have I stayed awake trying to survive this hearty ache while my heart keeps telling me to tell no one.
It keeps whispering like a demon-sylph; a dying wizard with his backbone stiff.
Telling me that of this love, this one between me and my sweetie pie glove Is something no one would buy
and that this, I am unable to deny. And yes! My heart was right. Maybe my foolishness is my delight.
Yes! No one would believe except eve or someone naive.

For this love between I and my dear is like one between the ant and the bombardier.
It is like a million pieces of a scattered jigsaw puzzle that no one will ever come by to mend.
This love, you wouldn't understand.


This love is a natural occurrence A disaster willing and bent on taking away my life.
This love can be likened to stepping on a broken glass.
You step, you feel nothing,
then a pleasurable pain then blood.
Then unpleasurable pain then more blood.
Then loss of comfort for a few weeks and life keeps moving on.


This love I speak of is like jumping off the cliff.
You get to the edge of the cliff,
you look to the beautiful sky, you jump off, you feel the cool breeze; natures friendly touch.
Just while in the caress of the wind, you hit the ground with your cranium.
Kaboom! End of the party.

You need to take this seriously and save me from this love lest it elopes with my life-bar and one day steal my breath away.

For this love is like a one night stand.
You ride through mountains of cheese and a milk shake.
Your eyes behold a fullness of growth then a special point of view; a luxuriance of aspect.
You arrive at Mount Everest in your Ferrari and just when you thought in your filthy mind. "here I am".
Your gas pump pukes and down you go back to your swamps.

This love is like choking.
Choking to death.
To death on a slice of pizza.
You take the first bite.
Then the second.
Then your tongue romances your lips trying to get a full grasp.
A full grasp of the heavenly taste.
Then a few coughs.
Your feeble mind tells you "all is well.
No need for a glass of water".
Then a strand of pizza gets roped around your glottis
Then blood.
Then you call on your god.

This love is like a migraine; a headache.
A pat on the head by the devil with his band coming around to take a sit somewhere inside your head.

I love her and she loves me but this love I speak of is complex.
It has nothing to do with the kisses.
I speak not of the hugs nor the nightly texts accompanied with emojis of hearts and cupids.
That is all child's play.
This love is like a friendly fire.
Comrades of the same battalion advancing in the warfront then suddenly,
the adamant bullet unwanting to hit the enemy.
Too shy to touch a stranger; runs to a brother and buries its head in the chest.
The chest of a teammate.

This love is like watching a horrific movie.
You are warned by the producers.
They make it clear that it contains blood and gore.
You overlook it.
You start to watch.
Sometimes excited by the funnily played out deaths,
sometimes scared by the dark shades of a walking dead in the streets of blood.
But nevertheless, you keep watching.
The movie ends.
You feel satisfied.
Night approaches your doorstep.
The moment to go to bed.
In the ecstasy of you fantasy, the scenes of your greed come visiting.
Then Baam! Your greatest nightmare.

I don't regret this love only because, either ways, it's going to kill me
and since my death is inevitable, this love for me, a must has become; my greatest addiction.

This love is like smoking.
You are sixteen years of age I'm not going to smoke! I'm not going to smoke!
This, you sing in harmony.
A little pressure from friends then you pick the first stick,
then two sticks. Then three, then a forest of cigarettes.
Now you are forty years of age, the doctors; your favorite enemies; your unavoidable frenemies.
They keep telling you.
Telling you your lungs are broken and your heart, falling apart.
You start to feel the devil taking a walk along your respiratory tract.
You start to receive postcards from the grave but you won't stop. You had rather die than drop the sticks.
You had rather send a letter back to the grave than burn down the forest.
Your heart keeps telling you that what you love is going to kill you but you had rather die anyway.

I must confess that this love is my cigarette and it's going to kill me.
I am close to the end for I can see the red sea and I can see the burning bushes; and the flame reflected on my iris.
All because I have refused.
Refused to save myself from this love;
this love in a burning garden.
All because I had rather choke.
I had rather choke on a kiss, get molted in a romantic hug, be a second Pompeii.
I had rather be remembered.
Remembered as a hero.
A hero who died for love.
Love in a burning garden.