A Birdsong
I want to make more memories with you but it seems I’m fading into the ones we had already.
— Fasasi Ridwan
The apparatus that made my body stay in hibernation throughout those years must have been living like a prey standing miles away from hope. Or It must have been that I have become adapted to being an outcast all my life. I mean the weight of these haunting memories must have pulled my soul away from my body. Every night, we filled the air with Fireboy & Joeboy songs, dirges for lovers whose night is covered in imaginations. Your body was rigid —rubbing against mine, against time. How my lips used to get drown in the river of your mouth. How the night watched us in admiration. How the moon was jealous of our shadows that it casts away its light from us. Say, the night is the best lover & I am the most vulnerable during those hours; How my heart used to turned white like clouds bereft of rain, collecting questions into gossips. Memories didn’t give me blueprint to hold you like how a mother holds her child, but here I am, after you slipped through a keyhole. Tell me, how many centuries deep is this wound. Tell me, those night were just dreams, mirage, an illusion. Tell me about the tamed bull, how I was the tamed bull. Say, the sky no longer says my name; I have become a cursed prayer. I have lost my sense of Qibla, I have lost my sense of time; my ability to chase things; my desire to set things on fire. I have lost my interest in stealing away, I mean: being stolen away. Mother says, I have become a lost cause. Is my body not supposed to be a metaphor for living, thriving but see, I’m fading into time. Here, my body walks into night again, the rain forcing down your memories into my throat. & I pour myself into an ocean of longings. Loneliness inherits me. & I become a vessel that once housed love.
Contributor’s Bio
Fasasi Ridwan is a budding poet, born and bred in Kaiama, Kwara state, Nigeria. He is a 400 level student of the Faculty of Agriculture, UDUS. He is a member of The Poetry Club UDUS & Book O Clock UDUS. He is also a semi finalist of SprinNg annual poetry contest 2023. He is interested in writers and what they write. He is featured on synchronized chaos and Kalahari Review. He tweets @Ibn_yushau44. & mails @[email protected].
