My Roots Request The Roughness Of The Diamond Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

When I look at these tweets you sent,
when love between us was smooth,
like the diamond you gave me, so rough,
as it graced my finger, I see the roughness
of the diamond, and see it was cut from a bigger
stone.

I see my roots in the stone, the bigger stone,
for love is big and limitless in my mind. You
got me and loved me in the morning of my
one day life. By evening, you were done,
and gone back to the sky.

Oh hear me out, as I speak our truths,
for once this stone shiny on a band
with depressions, that have darkened
with the days, says, your roots of love,
were equally shallow.

I say my roots are not here, on this smooth,
kissing gone, you hissing my name, snaky you
calling on love, like you were on a see-saw,
waiting for my side to go down and yours to go
up with my skirts in the air, with wind blowing
my laughs of hope to the wind.

My roots repeat the roughness of the diamond,
before it was cut to make me a part of you.
You said you were sealing a deal of love,
when you put this diamond in here.

Look how callous my hands have become,
this love eased my finger and thrust life
into my area of responsibility. I counted two,
had two for that is where the ring was.

Now I remain the one handled, who would
not handle another with equal roughness,
for the diamond was cut, at edges wrong,
to tie me and you together when we were
sons and daughters of different gods.

I long to speak at the court of the world,
that this happened at the diamond cutter's table.
They blame me and say I know how to pass blame,
onto the merchants of love, for they never know
what the buyer will do, with the diamond they cut.

You said you were going to love someone, and said
it even in stone, when you were lying to the world,
like the best bachelor in the world, that had us watching
the biggest sham in history.

I am no keeper of secrets, this you know from being here.
I also search spaces, this you know because if I tell the world,
what I discovered when we two were one, you will say, I sure
am a kiss and tell.

Why do you all claim to be good lovers, when you are takers?
Why say you can go a mile, when you cannot even take one step?
I long to hear from you lovers of the world, for I have come
to love stories of love, baked anew, on alters in oven hot
churches, for this we know is a story of man.

Keep on marching with the truth. For love is certain,
to speak for itself, if I misrepresent it with my knowing,
what I heard between two pillows, tired of supporting
heads that loved one minute and fought the next, only
to love again and then love no more.

If pillows could talk, they would not tell a soft story.
yes not one as soft as feathers, for they have heard a lot.
The stories would be as hard as the diamond here.
It is sick and tired of my finger, for these days I do not
even take the ring off when I wash dishes,
for what is the point.

Let us celebrate knowing, for it leads to making anew.
Renewing vows made with this diamond, could happen
if you first answer my questions. What happens to the
truth, , with which the diamond that seals the deal, is said
to cement? Does it harden in the cementing and end up
a mystery only the gods can solve or a mystery that only
the two people can solve? These are hard questions, you say.
They will be answered when we open pillows, unseal cemented
lies, and live the truth we sign and seal, like this diamond
on my ring finger.