soulmates – Lele Muthali

Isn’t It Pretty?

13.7.25

“Oh, Jake” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”

“Yes.” Jake said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

I was Clementine when I kissed you too soon,

texted too much, and made you laugh.

I was Jane when I said nothing,

held my heart behind my back, and walked away softly.

I was Brett when I let you in carelessly,

wanting nothing more than to belong to you.

Clem erased Joel, and chose the ache all over
messy, but brave.

Jane returned to a humbled man when the fire burned out,
and they built from ash and grace.

Brett kept loving, though she left Jake in the taxi,
hollow and hopeless.

And us?

The dam of our story has just broken.

-Lele

Why Would a Warrior Display His Swords?

20.7.25

Photo by Michael Kanivetsky on Pexels.com

Because he no longer needs to use them –

and cannot bear to let them go.

Because some wounds prefer silence to healing.

Because steel remembers what the soul forgets.

Because polished pain mimics honour.

Because to sheath is not to forgive.

A warrior displays his Swords as a declaration of survival.

–

I stepped into the room, feeling his presence close behind me.

The room felt like a shrine – intimate, deliberate, and quietly haunted.

To the far left, three oriental Swords were displayed on a mantle, one for every love that broke him. Each blade a vow to guard his boundaries. Swords of clarity born of pain, and discipline shaped by loss.

Around the room, a series of paintings, rendered by familiar hands, captured desire as ritual.

To the right, a bonsai tree sat patiently in a pot on the sill of a large window, its twisted grace silhouetted against a view so unspeakably beautiful, it squeezed my heart to pulp.

The landscape below stretched open in worship. Sunlight rested tenderly over the Creation of a Holy God.

On the wall above the bed, a great, singular Chinese fan opened like a celestial wing – part shade, part sentinel, part grace.

Life breathed into the room, slow and sacred. The space had a mythic stillness, as if time bent slightly around it.

– Lele

Duty

19.7.25

You said you could not live

under duty again —

not to any woman,

not in love.

As if love were a weight,

As if love could bind.

You know as well as I

that love is rhythm.

A remembering.

I watched you remember

every day—

In how you fed the animals,

spoke to the flame,

carried silences,

answered your mother’s voice.

In how you held the past

without flinching.

In the way

you moved

as if everything

was sacred.

You live by ritual.

You live by duty.

Walking beside you,

I saw how much of you was already given,

And I saw duty in letting go.

-Lele