this ache as a loop
- Sep 21, 2022
- 2 min read
by Michael Emmanuel
a.
i assure my lover I’ll divorce my sob stories. i flourish in the failure of this promise. every window i open leads into an alley growing wild with weed, with the teeth of the hurt. in my grandfather’s teenage diary are flash stories of people who left: the high school teacher who taught him to spell heavy, the trader across the street who showed him a war could fit into your pockets, the first woman he hurt. i tap him at night and angle the diary against his squint. se e miss won, aunty ajoke? he chuckles at my misworded Yoruba, at the accident of my accent. i find a photo of him in his youth, shaven-face & afro hair that outgrew his first lover.
b.
mother, i treasure your counsels & my worries widen. tilt the mirror & watch a thug leap out of this body. i am a black boy loved by a black lover in a city that celebrates nothing but blackness. i dream about my grandfather playing the keyboard at my grad party. when i wake, you stuff my mouth full of salt to scrub off the sickness. how else do i simplify the hollow in my chest, the echoes in my prayers? & if words are the arrows you describe, why are my wishes as light as feathers?
c.
i am running & sobbing about my dreams.
d.
tryout day: i flunk the two hundred meter dash, finish first in reverse. in the changing room the mirror bounces against the wall and leaves a dent. when i check, it swallows me whole. on the other end of the wall is a river & a bench made for two. i return to the field as the high jump boys complete the routine. when the umpire turns, he is wearing my grandfather’s face.
e.
i love anti-normal. i cry when my lover supplicates my exams into success. my friends invite me to a birthday bash. alone, i sob about the dream you left in my body as a seed.
f.
i am burning the bash ticket in the fireplace. there are dreams untouched in my memory, too tender to be examined. my phone rings & it is my lover. the dream replays itself.
Michael Emmanuel is a creative writer from Lagos. He was a finalist for the Awele Creative Trust Prize 2020 and an honorable mention for the 2022 Stephen A. Dibiase Poetry Contest. His works have appeared in Ake Review, Afritondo, Jalada Mag, Twelve Mile Review, and other places. He is on Twitter @mikey_emmanuel
