I lost a thousand days

and gained a thousand nights

on the moment I decided I could no longer

be in a relationship with my black Empress

who had seen me bathe naked

in a polluted river

every day since

I was a seventeen year old boy

desperate to be kissed by the exotic and hard done by.

 

What is there to be missed by letting the beauty go?

I mused one October morning at three, I left her

to be frozen out of my life

but with one eye on making sure those velvet lips

never went wandering into the arms

of another man and never flirted with anyone

in the manner she did with me,

ravenous splendour, sensational sex, drinking me whole.

 

A thousand days, a life time without

tasting bitter defeat but also the lack

of transmitted disease running through my

wasted veins makes me sad,

for now, I have no pleasurable way of slowly destroying

my life

for not only did she take from me, the Nubian princess,

she gave me the chance to sample beauty and temptation.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015