Online Reporter
Letwin Machaya
No soul suspects this artifice of joy,
this polished, ready smile I offer them —
a vacant mask, meticulously deployed,
a flawless, empty, glittering diadem.
The true reflection of my heart’s content
lies tethered to the days we shared before;
a fragile echo of a past moment sent
To linger on the threshold of your door.
For when I closed the volume of that time,
I knew I left my genuine self behind with you.
They are completely blind to my quiet sorrow,
my tears are secrets they will never trace.
My throat may echo with a manufactured laugh tomorrow,
but every sound is a prayer for your face.
In the loud confusion of their careless cheer,
a silent, desperate chant begins to rise:
Oh, to dissolve this distance, to draw you near,
to meet your memory in these lonely eyes.
The common world perceives a pillar of steel,
a fortress standing, resolute and whole.
They cannot fathom how profoundly I feel
the fracture running through my guarded soul.
They speak in platitudes of strength that lasts,
assuring me this pain will surely pass,
and that no wound of sorrow truly kills;
but I stand here beneath the shadow’s glass,
fearing this agony is the storm that breaks the hills,
and one day, simply, silently fulfils its dark,
unending promise to destroy.
They misread my solitude as sweet release,
a journey finally unburdened, light and free.
Yet in this stillness, there is no true peace;
my heart is gripped by chains they cannot see.
I am a prisoner within this fragile shell,
bound to a maze of unspoken, aching need,
trapped in the intricate silence of a spell,
where every planted joy refuses seed.
No one discerns the depth of this true yearning,
the essential, critical role you played for me.
They trust my competence, my steady learning,
assuming I navigate this life independently.
But when the lamps are dimmed and shadows grow,
when the constructed world of day has flown,
that is the hour when the mask comes down,
and so I weep in earnest, utterly alone.
Letwin Machaya is a second-year Zimbabwe Open University student. Learners can write short poems/stories or about special events at their schools and send to prince.mushawevato@ zimpapers.co.zw
