When was the last time you cried?

Intro and Selection by Terry-Jo Thorne (Researcher & Writer)

There are moments when silence turns into water — what the mouth cannot say and the body cannot act. Tears carry secrets that language too often fails to hold. To cry is to release what the heart cannot contain — grief, relief, love, or even joy. These lines give shape to that release, tracing its reasons, its quiet strength, and the fragile, universal beauty found when the soul speaks through our eyes.

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Isolation

BY SHARON IMMACULATE
Kenyan Hospitality and Commerce student who weaves together the emotional intricacies of love and pain in her poetry.

I only travel alone,
In my brain and heart,
In the dry woods,
In the dry ponds,
I rest on stones,
To think beyond.

Beyond the future,
Beyond where I am,
Sitted alone,
Calling like owls,
Weeping like tree branches.

I cry daily,
No one notices,
I-solated I am,
Every glance I give,
Still and stiff.
Everything is a single,
Serving item,
For single purpose,
For my period world
Is full of loneliness.

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Permission

BY ARIES RAGE
Zimbabwean writer and poet, she received the South African Print Author’s Poetry Award (APAPA) for Best Female Author, and her book ‘Jabu’ was selected as a national high school set book for the O’Level examinations.

My arms wrapped tightly
around my tiny frame,
I whisper: It’s okay.

Okay to feel scared sometimes—
to want to curl up like a question
and wait out the storm.

It’s okay to cry.
when everything weighs you down_
the sky cries too.

When pressure fills you,
like a hot air balloon,
it’s okay to let go.

It’s okay to give up sometimes—
on people,
and situations
that drain your soul.

It’s okay to recharge,
take charge,
choose what builds you.

And if that doesn’t work,
try again. And again.

Nothing can stop you.
Because this is called living—
and there is no right way
to do it.

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Alone Again

BY SCOOBY LF
Zimbabwean “confessional” poet. Poetry to him is release and relief, and he shares his poetry in the hope that it gets to someone who feels like he feels, longs as he he longs and never feels alone.

Im here again alone,
I’m tryna wrap this shit around my head,
Kinda messed up I don’t wanna lie.
When you were here and life got a bit tricky
You were my hope, my sweet thought to lean on,
And I’m still tryna believe I made the right decision.

it’s crazy, how two people who healed each other could still be each other’s disaster.
I swear I swear I could do this again, love to be yours again.
Like how can I get over this feeling that I just lost the love of my life.

But I remember again how you easily became my pain,
When I was hoping you’d be my happiness and I yours,
You once made me “a meant to be” believer
And you left me in tears,
a “let it be” born again.

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Cover image is a photograph of Jamier Boatman, taken by pandə, and was published in Rhubarbes Magazine.

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