Lagos Boy
you were a setting sun that windy evening, rays crawling
into sparse spaces in me i never even knew existed,
lazarusing the moribund stories in them, whispering,
lazarusing the moribund stories in them, whispering,
i just want to mix your tears with my rain. this was after
our bodies crept into each other for warmth, lips shedding
their lushness for a different kind of solace, tongues
stretching, struggling to be elastic, fluids trying to defy
& define the science sheltered in them. chest/ to chest/
fingers/ finding the right mounds/ to plant/ paradoxes/
ragged breaths/ seeking amplitude/ fire/ on fire
boy, who knew that one day, i would call you this way,
would see you this way. i remember our troughs and crests,
how we both reached resonance, exploding, hearts pounding, our hands holding each other’s saps,
then deflating, like a poorly blown balloon. you smiled
as if to say you were the aftermath of a given salvation,
all a thirsty body needed to heave a sigh of being quenched, a strange mix of triumphs and trials trails, of beauty and bruises.
i watch as you stood, pand strutted in your full glory, the stretch marks on your buttocks, reminding me again
of the countless discoveries you house. i know
drowned are the chances we’ll float into each other, fall
into each other again, the universe has a way of
never giving back anything that is a reminder of its image.
i’ve made peace with the reality you are dust, parts
of me i still have to return to.
your dust – my dust, our bearing will continue to stay a mystery.
Lagos boy, listen to your heartbeats, do you still hear those rhythms?
Taiwo Hassan is a writer of Yorùbá descent, a poet and a vocalist. A Best Of The Net Nominee, his poems have appeared in trampset, Kissing Dynamite, Lucent Dreaming, The Shore, Brittle Paper, Dust Poetry Magazine, Ice Floe Press, Wizards In Space and several other places. He emerged the first runner-up for the MANI 10 year anniversary Poetry Competition. He’s also an undergraduate student of Demography and Social Statistics at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Osun State, Nigeria. His first chapbook, Birds Don’t Fly For Pleasure is forthcoming for publication by River Glass Books.
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