Finding my Way Out of You
Today opens in my therapist’s office.
For sleep, drink 2 cups of lyric-less music.
She says to write everything I am thinking of.
Peanut butter, cupcake, snowflakes, pomegranate, peaches, vinegar.
This is the part I do not tell her: all the words taste like you.
Night: I turn on the music. Quiet strings running through my bones.
Meanwhile, a song is just a song until you open its windows.
I jump inside, trying to find my way out of you.
I Do Not Know What Part of You Dances In My Throat
I am back to where it all started.
Back to Sokoto, to the harmattan's frigid air sloshing
Over [our] my lips like a left-over kiss.
Back to the house—where the cracks on the walls
Question my loneliness. Inside the toilet, a used
Condom is still bloated and filled. Surprised how [we] I forgot
To flush. Whose duty was it to wash down the evidence of our sin?
I do not know—but I swear, when we kissed, we loved
It so much we forgot our tongues in each other’s mouth.
Meaning, I do not know what part of you dances inside my throat.
I jump over cobwebs to reach the place where memory sleeps.
Inside my wardrobe, a pink lingerie is still waiting for your return.
I pull out my tiny box of trinkets and the first thing I see is
Your smile beaming through a grizzled passport. For a second,
I allow myself drink the sunlight from your diastema. I think the
house is beginning to understand. I can feel it caving in.
[Insert name], it is a cold world out there.
still, I am burning the ash-colored cardigan you bought me.
I am burning the blankets you left over that night before turning water.
I am burning the pink lingerie. I am burning your passports.
I am saying Oh lord! Let us not wait for that which will not return.
I am saying Oh lord! Let that which left us remain in the leaving.
I can feel the house staring at me. I turn to stare back at it. In the end,
u s
we both b r t into tears.
BIO:
Michael Imossan is a Nigerian poet and the author of the award winning chapbook For the Love of Country and Memory (NigerianNewsDirect).
Today opens in my therapist’s office.
For sleep, drink 2 cups of lyric-less music.
She says to write everything I am thinking of.
Peanut butter, cupcake, snowflakes, pomegranate, peaches, vinegar.
This is the part I do not tell her: all the words taste like you.
Night: I turn on the music. Quiet strings running through my bones.
Meanwhile, a song is just a song until you open its windows.
I jump inside, trying to find my way out of you.
I Do Not Know What Part of You Dances In My Throat
I am back to where it all started.
Back to Sokoto, to the harmattan's frigid air sloshing
Over [our] my lips like a left-over kiss.
Back to the house—where the cracks on the walls
Question my loneliness. Inside the toilet, a used
Condom is still bloated and filled. Surprised how [we] I forgot
To flush. Whose duty was it to wash down the evidence of our sin?
I do not know—but I swear, when we kissed, we loved
It so much we forgot our tongues in each other’s mouth.
Meaning, I do not know what part of you dances inside my throat.
I jump over cobwebs to reach the place where memory sleeps.
Inside my wardrobe, a pink lingerie is still waiting for your return.
I pull out my tiny box of trinkets and the first thing I see is
Your smile beaming through a grizzled passport. For a second,
I allow myself drink the sunlight from your diastema. I think the
house is beginning to understand. I can feel it caving in.
[Insert name], it is a cold world out there.
still, I am burning the ash-colored cardigan you bought me.
I am burning the blankets you left over that night before turning water.
I am burning the pink lingerie. I am burning your passports.
I am saying Oh lord! Let us not wait for that which will not return.
I am saying Oh lord! Let that which left us remain in the leaving.
I can feel the house staring at me. I turn to stare back at it. In the end,
u s
we both b r t into tears.
BIO:
Michael Imossan is a Nigerian poet and the author of the award winning chapbook For the Love of Country and Memory (NigerianNewsDirect).
