Processing the pain of infidelity.
A pastor by training, DESIRÉE DE VILLIERS is now a writer and public speaker who lives with her husband and two children in Cape Town. Following the discovery of her husband’s infidelity, she processed her pain through poetry, and found redemption from an unexpected source. ‘As so many have discovered, the single greatest treasure of loss is, ironically, what one finds,’ she says. ‘As the layers of my various identities were removed, this painful catalyst confronted me with my true self. What satisfaction to be gradually introduced to “me”, and to find, with a cautious surprise, that I really enjoyed her company. I hope my poems will help people feel normal and hopeful again.’
her
Would you love me more
if I showed less
thigh?
Would you’ve spared me pain
if I’d loved you more?
Would you’ve looked aside,
seen me beside,
if I’d shouted harder,
tiptoed more softly?
Did you love me less
’cause you loved her more?
Do you love me less
’cause you love her more?
Will you love me less
now she’s been before?
You’ve dropped my heart
− pieces everywhere…
Does it matter though
now that she’s been there?
she
I am struggling
to see the self
I suspect is
somewhere
there.
In hiding or in utero
I’m not sure.
Still sheathed in shadow
her pupils cannot face
the glare
of day just yet
and so she sleeps
still breathing
only.
When she’s awake
I’ll come to call
− we know each other
after all.
goodness
If I allow myself to dream
there is a river of goodness
that flows toward me.
It laps my ankles
strokes my thighs
encircles my waist
then reaches high to full enclose
me with core energy.
Abundantly it baptises me.
I do not drown.
If I allow myself to dream
there is a river of goodness
that flows from me.
It seeks out mourners
despondents and
withered hearts
all universal torn apartness
and submerges them in air.
Marvellously it carpets care.
They cease to frown.
the life
I am sipping
the welcome warmth
of my morning tea
in an unpretentious
house by the sea
I await the dawn
with no uncertainty
All of this pleases me
Read more at www.desireedevilliers.co.za or buy RAW at www.loot.co.za .