David Chislett

David Chislett is a Johannesburg-based writer. He has had a number of short stories published in South Africa and was the editor of a South Africa edition of www.unlikelystories.org in 2006. He is currently working on a collection of short stories as well as a new novel, David works in the media.

Quick let us murder expectation

Now while it is still dark

And the day has yet to begin

Before we suffer from the burden

That it places on everything

We clap our eyes upon

Quick, before we imagine

What life could be like

Or how we might feel

Let us stab it in the back

As it lies sleeping in the gloom

I for one fear

That I cannot bring

Another whole day through

Under the disappointment

Of it failing me once again.

In truth

It is an abomination of a creature

That should never have existed

And now that I have let it breathe

The very same air as me

It contaminates everything I do

Yes I would murder

The very offspring of my own mind

I cannot live with it

I cannot live with what might have been.

The sparkling pixie dust of dreams

Settles into the palm of the hand

To mix with the sweat of exertion

The achievement of all dreams

Leaves nothing but a grey powder

You can hold in your hand

As the lights in your mind go out

The warmest, closest

And most comfortable of things

Will eventually need a cleanout

A re-examination

And rearrangement

I am lucky

I did mine

On a summer’s day

When the sun was shining

Adding luster

To the newly-dried

Soft and warm fabric

Of my gown

Your face was misspelled in the rain

And the gloom of the night where I found you

Or maybe I just don't read American

A Freudian slip of misrepresentation

Or was it misinterpretation

I can pore over

Encyclopedias

Or check the meaning of what I saw

In dictionaries

Doesn't change what I thought then

No matter what I understand now