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Thobani Makhunga Poem
-Take a peek at the gentle soul you created
-you took away all the sorrow with your angelic smile
-stopped all my shaking with your small warm hands
-the warmth you gave me feels like a home I never knew I had
-I sure am a lucky guy
-I only want to kiss you
-I only want to touch you
-I only want to love you
-I only want to gaze upon you
-I only want to hold you
-I only want to give you all my attention only you, just you and always you
-you’ve created a space in my heart that’s yours alone
-if you ever find yourself lost come and find me
-no one else could ever fill or reach your space in my heart
-my heart is yours and yours alone be proud of that
-no matter what happens, that space will always belong to you
Copyright © Thobani Makhunga | Year Posted 2026
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Thobani Makhunga Poem
-we wake up every morning assuming there will be another one
-we make plans for next year as if it’s guaranteed
-we push our dreams into the future, believing they’ll be time
-but one day you won’t wake up.
-One day you’ll have to put off your dreams for the last time
-u would have told urself “next year” one too many times
-and there won’t be a next year
-what are you waiting for ?
-the promotion?
-the savings account to hit a certain number?
-some mythical moment when everything feels safe?
-here’s the truth:
-it will never feel safe
-you’ll never feel ready
-but life doesn’t wait
-it moves with or without you
-Are we what we do with time?
-or are we what time does to us?
-what we call the beginning is often the end
-and to make an end is to make a beginning
-the end is where we start from
-So go, book a flight
-quit the job
-write a book
-fall in love
-watch the sunrise from the top of the mountain
-because at 2 am when the world is quite,
-the only thing worse than failing,
-is realising u never tried
-after all no plant can grow without rain,
-and no man can grow without pain.
Copyright © Thobani Makhunga | Year Posted 2026
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Thobani Makhunga Poem
Writing comes a therapy I’d never known I’d need,
While reading shows a world I’d never got to see.
The words I did not speak would taunt, haunt, torment, and bleed,
A silence sharp enough to break the best of me.
The points I did not prove, to keep the peace outside,
Declared the longest wars that raged within my chest.
The anger I denied would rattle, rise, and hide,
A storm I caged inside that stole away my rest.
I buried my emotions, truth, and all my fight,
A grave where bitterness took root and learned to grow.
From there my fear took hold, and darkened all my light,
Distrust began to blossom where my peace should go.
Yet pen in hand I speak the truths I could not say,
And watch those wars within grow quiet, day by day.
Copyright © Thobani Makhunga | Year Posted 2026
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Thobani Makhunga Poem
We share a name in our grandmothers’ mouths.
The same blood. The same laughter in our eyes.
Blood flows in our veins,
and ours calls to each other like rain to thirsty soil.
I love you the way dawn loves the earth:
without permission. Without apology.
Your voice is home,
but the door is locked by ussiko
By old laws whispered at family fires:
“Induku ayinamuzi”.
Love between us builds a house with no roof.
We sit at weddings for other people.
Your hand. An inch from mine. White cloth between.
Things do not happen unless meant to.
Yet here we are. Meant and unmeant in the same breath.
I watch you braid your hair.
“Ubuhle bendoda zinkomo zayo”
but all my cattle couldn’t buy us a blessing.
So take this dowry:
love unspoken at funerals, too loud in my chest.
If marriage is commitment
then we’re bound. Just not by rings.
Bound by childhood at night,
by secrets under our mothers’ noses,
by the ache of isililo sangaphakathi.
Go. Marry the man they’ll ululate for.
I’ll clap with the uncles. Swallow my heart.
“Isizukulwane asiboli”
I won’t twist the branch of our tree.
But know this:
When the world is quiet, I still call you My love.
In another life without blood and custom,
I’d spend eternity with you.
In this one, I honor you. But fate’s against me.
“Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu”. You made me human.
Ngiyabonga, even if I can’t be umyeni wakho.
Copyright © Thobani Makhunga | Year Posted 2026
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Thobani Makhunga Poem
Dear life, please tell me when will things get better.
Slowly a piece of me is dying
My body is now an empty shell
My mind a vessel of doubt
My soul tired to it’s core
But nobody notices as long as I put some smile.
Hope doesn't leave all at once.
It bleeds out slowly, until you forget what it felt like to believe.
I now know there’s no future without hope
My mind has been corrupted
It only wants to rest
For it believes it lost to life.
My heart is filled with hatred of the one person I truly wanted to love me.
In that hatred I learnt to love myself more.
In that hatred came a dream,
A dream to be a better person.
That dream became hope itself
But the hardest part isn't losing the dream.
It's waking up every day to a version of it that gets smaller.
I'm not giving up on my dream.
I'm just watching it slip through my fingers one quiet day at a time.
Copyright © Thobani Makhunga | Year Posted 2026
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