By Temidayo Okun
while the speakers played Finneas’s “i don’t miss you at all”, i was
chewing a piece of stale bread, softened by sweet tea & not the spittle that once lubricated the three words as they erupted from my throat & found your ears. i find it strange, the fact that my greatest weapon always fits into my mouth. i find it strange, how the taste of a name changes, depending on how far the body is from the one reaching out. sometimes, it gets so quiet— i start to cry, because nothing reminds me of you like silence does. but i tell you that silence hurts only when it is caused by oneself. & this silence hurts so much— i start to wish i could traverse the chasm between my body & where yours is not. if wishes were horses— beggars would ride. if wishes were horses— there’d be no beggars. i know everyone performs on social media, but i still chucked my phone at the wall when i saw your instagram post, because i wondered, while bawling my hopes out, why you’d be able to smile without me by your side. i sat on the couch you used to love, brandishing a knife & calling it messiah. i know now, that my shadow is the only part of me you haven’t broken. there is so much of you in me that my story isn’t unlike a basket trying to hold water, if i try to tell it without mentioning your name. it is not 2016 anymore. how could i have known that beside you— my body would become a metaphor for a house made out playing cards? 6 feet, two inches — & i was undone by a single touch. i fixed my broken phone, only to find your pictures intact. i tried to fix my broken mind, only to find memories of you intact. i fixed put together my broken heart, only to find that your voice still makes it skip beats. your voice still seeps out of all the places untouched by light. i wake up every morning, not knowing who i am, or where i am, or if i am. & for a few seconds, & only a few seconds — i do not miss you at all. but then your name settles around me & i become a tadpole thrown into the epicenter of a storm. this is the tenth letter i have written to you. but this, like the rest, will be burned— because i know smoke smells the same, even when i write down lies on paper. you once made me smile as you likened us to the beautiful ship you made out of the week-old newspaper we left on the kitchen counter. but nobody reminded me of the fact that a ship made out of paper is one that’ll never sail. the ship is at the bottom now.
when the song stopped— i placed my right hand over my left breast, as i realized that my heart is only a 3D mosaic of all the broken parts of me.
another song came on. it was Billie Eilish’s “Happier than ever”
i chuckled & sang the first line: “when i’m away from you— i’m happier than ever”
sike!
somewhere, somewhere.
somewhere, a child is erupting within the mind of a man.
they say the eyes are where grief is most visible & i can tell
you that the tear that rolled onto the page was a link & not a
stain. somewhere, deep inside the man, is a child clawing his
way up the throat & hoping that the tongue provides a road that
will carry a piece of him into the hearts of the people he loves.
simply put— being alive only means you constantly have something
moving inside you. somewhere, a child exists as nothing more than a
dialect. the child has run past hope with his arms flailing wildly.
even now, the child will break apart if he breathes in too much air.
somewhere, a child is staring at his mother’s face. she can’t see him,
because she isn’t looking for him. she never looks for him. he reaches
for her hand & she swats it away. he tries again & she pushes him hard
enough to make him fall off the bed. somewhere, a man is staring at his
mother’s face. she can’t see him, because she isn’t looking for him.
he reaches for her hand & this time— she doesn’t swat it away.
but her hand holds no warmth & he drops her hand to hold his head in
his hands as he realizes that it’s too late & nothing moves inside his mother
no more. he kisses her cheek. he knows she won’t flinch,
because no one can kiss you wrong if you’re dead.
close your eyes & fall asleep
song playing in background: fallin’ for you — by Dylan Brady.
yesterday — i came back to you / i took two deep breaths
& tasted the words i wanted to say to you on the third.
i learned first — that there is no poem beautiful enough
to help me traverse the chasm between your body
& where mine is not / because if i could only keep you here
just by writing all the right words — i would.
i sit up from time to time / watching you sleep / tracing
patterns on your skin & fashioning songs out of your breathing.
i know now that my name on another’s lips can be as natural as
the sound of the earth moving / i know now that heaven hath no
sweetness like a love returned / & somehow— happiness is a
word i only believe in when the light strikes your eyes at exactly 47°.
& i love you continues to be more than just a statement that fits
into my mouth / oh baby— i am a wreck when i’m without you.
all that i love now fits into my arms every night /
i wasn’t ready for you / i brought a knife to a gunfight
& now you have loved my stubborness into submission.
but there are worse things in life than falling for you.
& so i say to you under the light of this foggy morning :
close your eyes & fall asleep.
because when you wake up— i’ll still love you.
a poem in which prayers feel like lies
i peered into every chasm —
searching for redemption with my back hunched over like a lie caught in headlights / they say once you live long enough — death will visit you / what i mean is —
the rustling of leaves in the backyard will one day cause you to know the taste of your own heart / & yet — we hold onto dreams even though we know that we can slip through the fingers of the man with the scythe — just by opening our eyes to let some life light in /
a blind man sees with four other senses /
/ a lost boi sees nothing but his own death /
the scars sometimes hurt —
& the sound of breaking hearts reach my ears even though all i see are smiles that are offered in every direction but inward / & the more i look at the shadows on the wall — the more they resemble what i imagine grief to look like /
— like my grandmother with her head thrown back in laughter as she manages to whisper : i can feel death climbing up my legs — & death finds her staring into the eyes of God through the ceramic ceiling.
— like the trembling lips of the three year old boy on the other side of the street / watching as the tyres of the SUV slowly crushed his puppy’s head as his drunk father backed out of the garage— muttering curses loud enough for him to hear.
— like you & i / living through this life without ever hearing the voice of God.
sometimes the prayers fold back into my mouth—
because my faith is a bird with two broken wings / & i can only stand by — watching it try to raise itself to flight / under the open skies — the clouds will do nothing to hide me from the lies that come back down as searing heat.
i have passed by all the things i have forgotten just by being human for too long /
/ how do you feel ? — they ask / & the answer bubbles up my throat & stops beneath my tongue — because that’s where all lies go to hide from the light / because i know sometimes— the truth is too bitter to be swallowed & it somehow becomes the lie we spit out /
/ & because i know the darkness continues to reach out — eager to consume / & because i know the prayers i spit towards heaven feel more like lies.
